by Thomas Wood
My kit weighed heavily on my back as we began the slow walk towards the village, in silence. Nothing seemed to stir for the first hundred yards or so as we moved as one, long line and I wondered for a moment if a ceasefire had been called that we hadn’t been told about.
Up ahead, I could make out the perimeter of the village, which was still smouldering after the artillery that had hammered down on them a matter of minutes ago.
We marched across the field, the approach road that led to the crossroads suddenly appearing out of nowhere over to my right. It looked odd, the cobbled stones that led into a small village totally devoid of any life or buildings.
We knew that they were still there, they simply had to be, it was just that we couldn’t see them immediately.
As the swishing of footsteps continued to march through the mud and small patches of grass that had, until very recently, been the reserve lines of the German trench system, I wondered how much longer it would be before the Germans suddenly opened up.
If it was me, I would be waiting with all the machineguns that I could muster, and let as many soldiers march upon me as was possible. Then, at exactly the right moment I would order everyone to open up, to inflict as much pain and destruction on the approaching forces as possible. That’s what I was supposing was going to happen in that village.
“Remember lads,” Needs hissed to us all, “take those crossroads, we’ve got the village. Help those boys get to the crossroads.”
Immediately after the sergeant had finished speaking, almost as if they had been waiting for him to finish his little monologue, every machine gun and rifle in the whole of the German empire seemed to spark up, chattering away between one another as they pinged darts all around us.
I heard the three distinctive cracks of a machine gun sparking up somewhere over to my left, before the three rounds were kicking around at my feet, throwing up dust and dirt in equal measure. Every fibre of my being wanted to throw myself to the ground, hoping that the lie of the land would help cover me in some way, but I knew too well that all it would do would turn me into a fantastic target for the Germans.
I could almost feel the operating handle cranking itself forwards and backwards as round after round was sent shooting from the end of the barrel towards me.
As the sounds of bullets tearing through human flesh began to reach my ears, mixed with grunts and screams of wounded and dying men, I realised that it wasn’t just the one machine gun that had opened fire on us.
From where we were, there was one on the right flank, over the far side of the crossroads, with another one positioned in the centre, that had an excellent field of fire straight down the approach road. I supposed that other teams, similar to ours, had been tasked with neutralising those threats, and so tried to wipe them from my conscious mind as best as one can when they’re trying to cut you down.
It was the one on the left flank, the one that had spat three bullets at my feet, that I was most preoccupied with. It seemed to be sat quite snugly in the ruins of an old church, with only one wall that could be identified as being a building of prayer, all the others lying around the gun in large chunks, the size of footballs.
The piles of sandbags all around it was the main giveaway that there was something there worth protecting, that and the fact that an eruption of noise was emanating from within its defences.
That was the machine gun placed on the Germans’ right flank, the one that would be waiting to cut down the troops once they had made it to the crossroads.
That was our machine gun.
“Find cover! Get behind something!” screeched Needs, as the bullets began to make a spectacular impact on our small raiding force.
I leapt behind what must have once been the corner of a house, just as some more bullets thwacked into the concrete on the other side. I tucked my legs in and clutched my rifle to my chest, convinced that what I was hiding behind was far too small to really hide me properly.
A few more rounds whizzed past me on either side of my tiny bit of cover, one round catching a poor boy behind me straight in the kneecap. He threw his rifle from his arms as he collapsed onto the ground before him, screaming in agony. Within seconds, he was crawling his way towards me, his eyes fixed on mine as I sat there silently watching him, willing him to make it to me so that I could drag him behind the remnants of the wall.
Just as he lifted himself to heave his broken body closer to safety, three soft pops resounded, blood bursting from his chest as the rounds pierced his skin in an upwards motion. He stared at me for half a second longer, his head shaking gently as he steadied himself after the impact, before he slumped forwards into the ground, motionless.
“Ellis! Where are you! Let’s move!”
The screams of the sergeant made me snap out of my trance, as I heaved myself away from the cover and bounded towards the stone water fountain, that still stood defiantly, by the edge of the road.
Needs was squatting behind it, his head scanning behind him for anyone else that might have been left behind who could lend a hand. I could make out Beattie, Etwell and Sargent with him too, each one of them lying down behind the stone structure trying to forget what was happening.
Needs must have screamed at them to do something shortly after I poked my head out from the wall, as each of them popped up, firing off rounds in the general direction of the machine gun, doing nothing to slow their rate of fire, but at the very least ignore the figure that was charging across open ground to get to his mates.
As I flew across the ground, I caught sight of a body, one that I recognised. It was Harris. He had been pinged right in the face, not in the forehead like one would imagine, but he had taken it through the nose, which had left a huge crater in his face that made it look like his nose had been ripped clean off. The only way that I was able to identify him was by the small, browned, leather bound bible that was still clutched in his palm.
I forgot about him as quickly as I had laid eyes on him, as I threw myself into the stone fountain, just as great shards of it were being ripped off by the rounds that were now keeping us all pinned down.
“Nice of you to join us, Ellis!” screamed Beattie, who was grinning from ear to ear as he had slid back down to push more rounds into his Lee Enfield.
“Harris is dead!” I blurted, not really thinking of the consequences for Beattie, who had been particularly close to him.
“They want us all dead!” was his defeatist battle cry back to me.
“Be of use, Ellis! Come on!” Needs was hollering directly into my ear now, as a few explosions kicked off to our right, hopefully as the second and third machine guns were overrun.
I swung my rifle up onto the top of the small wall, which could only have been shin height if I was to stand next to it properly. I realised that the small bath tub of water that it housed was scummy and covered in an almost undisturbed layer of dust, the water shaking gently with every vibration that erupted from the machine gun.
I fired off four rounds, before more bits of ancient stone was flicked around in my vision, causing me to duck back down behind the comfort of the wall, with everyone else.
I realised that it was the first time that I had fired my rifle in action before, and I hadn’t even given it a second thought.
“That’s the first time you’ve fired, isn’t it!” roared Beattie, as he looked across at me with eyes wilder than a rabid wolf. “We all had it! Everyone gets that look in their eye!”
The machine guns continued to rattle away incessantly, but I struggled to hear too many rifles kicking off in amongst the battle, the lack of their higher pitched cracks so noticeable that I wondered if the Hun had any at all.
It concerned me to see that the machine gun was so heavily defended with sandbags, but no other positions were, which made me suspect that the main bulk of the German force had already evacuated. But I merely put it down to wishful thinking, the Boche wouldn’t simply give up on a village such as this, especially as it was so close to
the railway lines that they depended on for supplies.
“Over there! Can you see that building?” Needs hollered, pointing in the general direction of a pile of bricks, which once must have been a schoolhouse, owing to its close proximity to the church. “That’s where we’re going, we should be in range to do some real damage there!”
“Sargent, Beattie, Etwell! You’re up first. Head down, as fast as you can! We’ll cover! You ready, Ellis?” he bellowed, turning to face me. I quickly pushed another charger clip into the bridge, before pushing them down forcefully by pinching them securely.
I forced the bolt forward, flicking it down expertly, before I looked back at my sergeant, and nodded.
“Right boys…Move!”
As soon as he had uttered the words, I was kneeling behind the wall, my sights set at around two hundred yards, aiming just above the heads of the Germans that I could see peppering our hiding place.
I fired off three rounds rapidly, each time feeling the cocking piece slam forward to eject the round, with each empty cartridge sent spinning way off to my right somewhere with every heave of the bolt.
Just as I was lining up to take my fourth shot, I caught sight of Sargent, sent cartwheeling over to his left, as a round entered his body. A gasp passed involuntarily over my lips, as I pulled the trigger without really looking at what I was firing at.
Without letting himself stay on the floor for too long, Sargent pulled himself back to his feet, his left arm dangling down limply from the rest of his body, blood gushing from his elbow leaving a trail of scarlet liquid behind him.
Within about five seconds, I was completely out of rounds, as was the sergeant, but the others had already made it to the schoolhouse, and were now setting themselves up to cover our approach in towards them.
“You ready, son?” Needs said as he finished reloading his rifle, watching me go through the final few motions of doing my own.
“Yes, Sarge!”
“Come on then, let’s go!” I let him go first, following close behind him, but leaving enough of a gap that I wouldn’t be cut down in the same burst of fire.
He was slower than I was, and I found myself catching up with him as we charged our way towards the others, their rifles kicking and bucking as we slowly made ground and closed the gap between us.
The machine gunners were really having a tough time to keep up the incredible rate of fire that they had been, as the three rifles in the schoolhouse continued to pour well aimed and rapid rounds down towards them, so much so that the sergeant and I could quite easily have strolled towards them, without a single machine gun bullet coming our way.
“You alright, Bob?” I shouted, sucking in more dust and smoke than oxygen, as I tried desperately to catch my breath.
“It’s nothing!” he returned, without turning back to me, rounds still flying from his weapon as he spoke.
All of a sudden, the machine gunner somehow managed to traverse the gun round, so that it was able to fire on us with a pinpoint accuracy, even though he too was under heavy fire.
All five of us hit the deck as quickly as we could, as large sections of the wall gave way to the bullets that thumped into the only solid cover that was nearby.
Several of the others swore and I flinched as a shard of brick landed forcefully on my stomach.
“Where’s the rest of the advance?!” howled Needs, as he started to desperately look down the road for some kind of relief.
As the machine gun stopped to reload, Etwell and Beattie began to empty the remainder of their rounds in the direction of the church, while the rest of us scanned the village for any sight of another British soldier. But we could see no one.
It was almost as if we had been left totally alone.
13
“Where are they! Where on earth are they! They should have moved up ages ago! They should be by that gun now!”
I had never seen the sergeant ever raise his voice in this way before. Of course, I had heard him shouting many times, but never in the flustered and panicked way that he was screaming as we lay in the ruins of the schoolhouse.
Just as another volley of bullets zipped over our heads, I could make out the second machine gun, the one that was situated in the middle of the crossroads, momentarily turned our way, inaccurately pinging some rounds in our direction, but spitting them in our direction nonetheless.
“How are they firing on us?!” erupted Etwell, and I felt sorry for the bloke who was going to get the blame for it later on. “They should be engaging them! That gun shouldn’t have the time to be firing at us!”
It had only been a short burst, but that was all that it had taken to tell us that something was seriously wrong with the bulk of the advance.
“We’re going to die here, if we don’t do anything, Sarge!” called out Bob, who was now hastily trying to wrap a dressing around his own arm, with little success. I managed to shuffle my way over to him, tying it so tightly that he almost began to cry, while Needs began to mull everything over.
“Ellis, how fast are you feeling?”
“Like the wind, Sarge.”
“Right, okay. I need you to fall back, go back the way we came. Find an officer, any of them, and find out what on earth is going on with those guns. Then, bring some men back with you if you can, we’re not getting out of here on our own.”
The others had heard what he had said perfectly, and began loading in their charger clips of .303 rounds into their rifles before he had even finished. They were ready to leap up, in the face of the oncoming bullets and give covering fire to the fool who was about to expose himself in the open once again.
I puffed my cheeks out sharply, “See you in a minute then,” I said, trying to find something of a grin from somewhere, but could only muster up a slight twitch of the lips.
As soon as I had said it, I leapt to my feet, my legs creaking and cracking as I did so. I began to focus on the small stone water feature that I had been crouched behind not five minutes before, and I felt greatly encouraged by the sheer scale of the noise that the rest of my section were able to direct towards the machine gunners.
It was only when I was half a yard away from the fountain, that the bullets began to chip away at the masonry, by which time, it was too late, I was safely behind it.
Grazing my chin on the floor as I threw myself to the ground, I took a few seconds to try and get my breath back, focusing on where I would be running to next. Never once did I look back behind me to see how the boys were getting on, as I was confident that they would continue to have my back, right down to the very last round in their rifles.
I barely waited for my own breath to catch up with me, instead opting to get the whole charade over and done with, jumping to my feet and charging towards the small corner of wall that had been my solace earlier on.
The machine gun was either totally surprised that I was still alive, or they were too engrossed with the handful of rifles in the schoolhouse, as not a single round seemed to be aimed in my direction. Still, it didn’t stop me from clutching onto my cap as I ducked and ran.
The boy that had been caught through the knee was still lying there, face down in the dirt and I quickly scrabbled over to him, tugging the bandolier that he had over his chest and relieving it of his possession by passing it over his head.
The cloth bandolier was almost full, which meant that he had close to thirty rounds of spare ammunition that he would never get to fire. Hopefully I would.
I felt almost safe as I began to weave my way through the rubble of the village, the big guns still booming further ahead, but too distracted by the presence of other troops to be dealing with a lone threat like me.
Eventually, making my way to the main road that led into the centre of the village, I came across a young looking lieutenant, hiding behind the rubble of a building on the far side of the road.
He copped me, immediately stopping me from crossing with a firm hand.
“Wait there! As soon as you step out, you�
��ll be cut down!”
I didn’t need to be told twice, and so stood there staring at him as he mustered some of his boys to lay down some fire for me.
As soon as the first round kicked out of their rifles, I was practically on the other side of the road already, a hail of bullets taking half a second too long to readjust and bury themselves in their target.
“Who are you?”
“Private Ellis, Sir. Five platoon. We’re on the flanking movement to take out that machine gun on our extreme left. Problem is, Sir, is that we were told you would be moving up the middle, taking the fire from the central gun, but we’re taking it all. We need help.”
The lieutenant stared at me for a moment, and I thought for a second that he was going to punch me as I had accused him of failing in his duties.
“The flanking team on the right are completely gone, that’s the gun that’s firing on us here. I’ve sent some more men to take it, in the hope that they draw its fire and free us up to take that gun. How many men have you got over there?”
“Five, including me, Sir. One of them is wounded.”
“Okay, hang tight there a second. Wait for the gun on the right flank to open up on the new team, then take these three men with you and we’ll begin to advance as best we can on the central gun.”
“Sir.”
We didn’t have to wait very long before the gun on the right flank began to fire away at something in their line of sight, acting as our starting pistol to begin our charge over to the left flank.
“With me!” I screamed at my new command, a group of three men who looked even younger, and more frightened than I was.
We leapt over bits of rubble and dodged bullets, until we came to a stop at the water fountain again. By the time we had made it there, I was down to just two men.
“Over there,” I said, flicking my palm in the general direction of the schoolhouse, “that’s the rest of the platoon, we’re taking that gun. Do you reckon you can deliver some well-aimed shots on the gunner?”
I got a curt nod from the two of them.