by Thomas Wood
I half expected an over exaggerated squeak to come from the door as it pivoted on its hinges, but no such sound came as he silently pushed open the door, before storming in on tip toes, heading for the far corner, trying to dominate the room. I followed close behind, gun raised, ready to return fire as he was peppered with bullets. The red mist would linger for half a second, before being renewed as I received the same good news. I slammed my eyelids shut, forcing myself into darkness and allowing me to refocus my mind.
We stood for a moment in the room, the dull beating of the machine gun upstairs worryingly resembling the thud of boots charging down the stairs. The continued clamour was good, they weren’t coming downstairs for us yet.
The room was desolate and empty, apart from a few upturned boxes, littered with playing cards and coffee mugs. The sweet smell of tobacco wafted its way to my nostrils as a pipe lay solemnly on its side, pining for its owner to return. I thought of my Dad. It had been months since I’d smelled the familiar smell of a pipe. It had been months since I’d seen him.
All the while that my gaze was fixated on the pipe, my mind too, was fixated on my Dad. I felt a reassurance as I looked at it, a presence almost, that he was there, on my side. I could see him now, twiddling his pipe in between his fingers as he read the latest news. It had been months since I had seen him, months since I’d heard from him even and yet, I knew exactly what he had been doing in all that time. Precisely, nothing.
Nothing worth mentioning anyway. He was a changed man, a man who spent his whole day with only his thoughts, only moving to get some food or relieve himself. He was locked in his own head. I needed to make sure that I wasn’t right now.
It was a small building, I could see the exterior wall to my right, through a kitchen area, with nothing occupying it other than some jerry cans and opened tins of food.
The wooden staircase ran along the back wall of the room, from left to right and was painted with a layer of flaking mud.
It was my turn to take point, my automatic fire would be more useful as we climbed the staircase and came face to face with a platoon of elite German troops. I wondered how helpful thirty-two, nine-millimetre rounds would be here and imagined the spring forcing each one up and into the chamber, quicker than a ray of sunlight.
My boots seemed to smash into the wooden floorboards sending a shriek up the stairs. I held my breath and steadied my aim as I waited for them to appear at the top of the staircase.
No faces peered back at me, so I continued to the next step. It seemed twice as loud as the first, and as the footsteps were repeated behind me, I became convinced we would be dead within a matter of moments.
My breaths were quicker and shallower, my heart beat faster than it ever had done before causing it to ache and send a message to my stomach to release the butterflies. They flew recklessly around my stomach, as though they’d been given free reign. Sweat rolled down my face, the salty solution stinging my eye as it rolled uninvited into my pupil. I was becoming a nervous wreck, a liability.
The throbbing of the machine gun continued to vibrate up through the soles of my shoes as I inched closer and closer to annihilation. The machine gun was acting as a pacemaker on my heart, only risking a beat every time a quick, violent burst was expelled. I choreographed my breathing too, with the sound of machine gun fire.
With a slight creak, a mixture of the weight on the floorboard and the strain on my knee joints, I reached the top of the stairs. I was sweating profusely now, the slimy liquid threatening to force my weapon down to the ground, and my eyes to be drowned in the solution. I gripped my weapon tighter and reshuffled it to make sure it was firmly embedded into my shoulder. I kept it raised and steady, heading for the open door which stood directly in front of me.
My heart seemed to groan as the vomit inside me began to make an attempt to see the outside of a human body.
The room was empty from what I could see, its door hanging helpfully ajar, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t have to clear it. I didn’t much fancy the idea of someone sneaking up behind me and pumping me full of lead. I felt almost relieved that my companion had a bolt action rifle, hopefully it would give him enough time to realise his mistake if a .303 found itself suddenly embedded in my body.
The slime of my sweat made me slide all over the place, as if my joints had been lubricated a little too much, I needed to get this all over with, and quickly.
On the balls of my feet I burst into the empty room. It was completely barren, not even a single window to let in any light. A few rolled up hay mattresses lay recklessly in one corner of the room, a large steel jug frequented the other corner, the strong stench of urine acted as all the deterrent I needed to leave the room immediately.
While I’d cleared the room, the landing area was being watched over by a bayoneted rifle and as I breathed in his ear, he prepared to move into the next room. We’d need to move quickly now, the door had banged as I’d burst in and, although there was no movement from the next room, we had to assume that a platoon of enemy soldiers had all heard it from the other side of the wall.
My partner was taking a more casual approach, moving down the landing quickly, he gently pushed the door on the left and sauntered in, swinging his rifle around so as not to catch his bayonet on the door frame. Like a faithful dog, I followed, expecting to see a body overcome with deadly rounds.
Other than an intact but aging window, the room was identical to the last.
We had one room to go. The rattling intensified as we inched closer, and the sound of communicating voices made every inch of me sweat intensely. The rattling sounded like a never-ending tapping on the floor and it began boring itself into my mind. I scraped my forehead rather than wiping it as I prepared for our final assault.
The door was ajar, I moved over to the other side of the door frame like a ghost, trying to peer into the room. I could make out one figure, his face lit up with each burst of the machine gun.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I could hear at least one other voice, so pushed two fingers up towards my companion. I waited till I thought I saw his head nod in recognition, before I put up three fingers to signal my uncertainty.
He smirked with a slight shake of his head. We’d been fighting blind for most of the evening already.
He signalled back to me to prepare my Sten. It was a gutsy weapon, it regularly jammed but it was easy enough to clear and its design was odd to put it mildly. The magazine leapt from the side of it, a horizontal feed, like a bone that was broken and pushed its way through the skin, it just didn’t look right. I leant it over to one side to check that I could see a round glistening back at me. It sat faithfully right where it should, hopefully it would do what I wanted it to do now. It wasn’t meant to work like this, but right now, it served a purpose.
I finished caressing my weapon and by the time I looked up, his hand was already raised, slowly counting down.
5…as the tapping finger continued on the other side of the door, I pulled the Sten over into my left hand…
4…The weight of it began to send a shooting pain down my forearm and into my bicep as I held it steady, it seemed to slip in my clammy hand, but its demise was interrupted by the protruding magazine…
3…The incessant tapping of the machine gun stopped, or at least it seemed to slow as we got closer…
2…Voices sparked up on the other side of the door and an excitable movement could be seen through the crack…
1…my hands began to cramp up around the Sten, as I gripped it for dear life, my hands had frozen around it.
Go.
He pushed the door open with such a force that the hinges almost gave way, it smashed into the wall so hard that it began to shut itself again. Before I missed my brief window, I swung my body round in a wide arc, left arm outstretched and released the Sten into the room, making sure it hit the ground with considerable power, while my companion grabbed the door and slammed it back into its frame.
I felt as if I�
��d lost one of my own limbs. I felt like one of those many at a party, not knowing anyone other than the host, and with no drink in my hand. I had no idea what to do with my own arms, I’d become so used to carrying a weapon, or clutching the controls of a glider that they didn’t really feel like my own limbs anymore.
I felt naked, I had nothing to defend myself with if this hadn’t worked. I felt vulnerable.
Immediately, the Sten began discharging its rounds, bouncing around in every direction with its recoil making it buck and kick like a rabid donkey. A round cracked into the door frame just above my head, sending a large splinter shooting through the air before clattering on the other side of the landing. I looked across at him as he mimicked a whistle at me. He stood covering the door, ready to dispose of anyone who came charging out, skewering themselves on his bayonet.
A shriek of pain shot out, just as the magazine emptied itself, the Sten giving a fleeting thump as it settled somewhere in the room. We held each other’s gaze throughout, ready to react. I was now weapon-less, what lay on the other side of that door was down to him. I just hoped he was fast enough at cocking his weapon.
He obviously had something against doors, or this one in particular rubbed him up the wrong way as he launched himself shoulder first into the door, sending the door straight into the wall, the frame cracking under this unnatural pressure, letting it rebound back at me as I stepped through.
Two bodies lay chaotically on the floor. One lay in a lagoon of oozing scarlet liquid, motionless. The Sten had done its job, three bullets had caught this one man, two in the neck, the third just grazing his eyebrow. He was dead, no doubt about it. I hadn’t seen a corpse before now, but I knew instantly he was my first, and I would never forget it. His eyes had already begun to sink into his skull and his mouth hung open limply, a small trickle of blood coming from one corner. Pity and guilt took a hold of me like never before. This was my first victim. He would have been alive if it wasn’t for me. He would have had a family, a life to build, hopes and dreams. And it was me who had cut that short. No one else.
The second man lay at the foot of the machine gun, writhing in agony. His face was so screwed up with pain I doubted if he knew we were even in the room with him. His teeth were clamped down hard on each other, but no scream came from his mouth.
He managed to control his breathing and spat a globule of saliva out onto the floor while doing so. He clutched at his lower abdomen, blood seeping through the fleshy bandage he had applied to himself. It looked as though he only had half a middle finger, half of it disappearing up inside himself as he desperately tried to plug the leak.
As he opened his eyes, a look of calm passed over him as he stared at the bayonet. It was pressed into his neck gently, enough to leave a small pockmark on his skin but not enough to draw blood. He spoke, but I couldn’t make out what he said, but the whimpering told me everything.
“Do it, please, get it over with.”
My new sidekick’s nose twitched furiously as he debated with himself whether to plunge the cold steel through the artery. The man was bleeding out, that much was obvious, he would be dead in a matter of moments regardless, my second victim of the night. Outside, all was calm, men began to call out to each other and positions consolidated. The machine gun hung pathetically from the window, like a child who couldn’t find his mother. Shell casings littered the floor.
The bayonet was gently pressed further into his neck, but he still did not wince, nor plead with us to stop. He clutched at his stomach, keeping a hauntingly calm eye contact with his opponent. With a frustrated roar, the bayonet was lifted from his neck, while he ran out, screaming for a medic.
It was calm again. The silence reappeared, eerily. It was just me and him. I pulled my Sten from the middle of the room, still hot to the touch and pushed another magazine in. I busied myself making sure my weapon was ready, all my pockets secured, and the sweat cleared from my hands. Anything to avoid the dying man. He grunted and, placing the Sten by my side, I knelt down beside him.
I noticed his teeth were slightly stained on one side, a deeper pigment than the rest. He was the pipe smoker, no doubt about it. He would hang it limply from his mouth, while going about his day to day life. Just like dad.
His eyes widened sadly as he begun to cough and splutter, small bubbles of blood began erupting from his mouth, bursting as they hit the surface of my face. Still, he said nothing, but begged me with his eyes to help him, to get him home; he burned his memory into my mind, into my soul. I found myself pushing my hands down hard on top of his, and watched as inevitably, the leak of his vital fluids began seeping through my own fingers.
His eyes filled with tears as his breathing began to quiver. Coughs of blood began interrupting his panting until the pants turned to wheezes. He spat, and I felt his blood splatter on my face, wiping it with my blood-soaked hand only making matters worse, smearing it across my face to fuse with the camo cream. His wheezes began to penetrate my ears and I felt each one as they too, etched themselves into my mind.
I moved my hands and wiped his hair from his forehead and propped his head up on his helmet.
“I’m sorry mate,” I found myself jittering, “I’m…I’m really sorry.” I could feel a pool of sorrow bubble up in me as I looked at him. I imagined the heartache and despair that his family would no doubt experience at the news of their son’s passing. If they ever received news of his passing. He would soon become just another casualty of war, another man occupying an unmarked grave that would gain no visitors, his funeral attended only by those who would chuck the dirt on top of him.
He gradually lifted his arms up, as if he was reaching for something, my face perhaps, but with a thud, they collapsed to the floor, as his eyes began to loll to the back of his head.
His legs began to jerk suddenly, and the wheezes turned more to gargles, as if he was drowning. The gargling continued, like a pot of boiling water simmering on a stove, for a few seconds, as did his flailing arms. I rocked backwards and leant on the heels of my feet, I sat there totally helpless. With one final, overexaggerated twitch of the legs, he suddenly lay quite still. It was all over.
I felt almost relieved for him.
His eyes stayed rolled into the back of his head, which made what I was about to do much easier. I began rummaging around in his pockets trying to find anything of use to me; a weapon, intelligence, ammunition, anything.
It’s a necessity of war. It had to be done.
I kept telling myself over and over again that I had to do it, I had no other choice. This was war. He was on one side, I on the other. That was just the way things had turned out. In fact, he had been shooting at me not three minutes ago. But I hadn’t even offered him the chance of surrender. I had butchered him. I continued to give myself a hard time as I slowly realised that justifying a cold act is more difficult when you’re trying to reason with yourself.
His mouth had already locked open, in an agonising scream and I could see that his tongue was already beginning to dry out rapidly. The smell of tobacco still lingered around the opening of his mouth, a stale smell clinging to him, reluctant to give up the final piece of evidence of his existence.
I struggled as I unbuttoned his tunic, my hands shaking in protest at my actions. Parting his tunic with my quaking hands, I saw a small emblem stitched to the inside of his jacket, but it didn’t look like a Swastika or even any other German insignia. I yanked it over to one side, so as to catch it in the light of the moon. It was a small red and white crest sewn just by his heart.
He had died for a country that wasn’t even his. He was a Pole. I couldn’t help but let my mind wander as it tried to make sense of why he was here. I felt sorry for him again as I thought about the brutality of forced conscription, the poor conditions he would have lived in back home and the murder he had already seen. Or maybe he had been a diehard Nazi.
I had felt unstoppable, charging across the bridge, armed men on either side of me, charging towards a moral
, just war. Now, I felt alone, ashamed and weak, like the slightest breeze would totally overwhelm me.
Regardless of what I told myself he had done, I retrieved the mattress from the other room and rested it over the top of him, as a Bren gun team sauntered in to take advantage of our new vantage point.
“Well done mate,” one of them sparked up with a pat and squeeze on the shoulder.
I trudged back outside, dejected.
8
20th November 1917
06.52 hours
The ground almost gave way as I leapt down from the ridge, my knees cracking as my feet smashed into the earth below. Gunfire rattled off just behind me as large chunks of soil were catapulted upwards before crumbling into a fine dust over the ground.
Bullets hissed and cracked as they zipped past my ear, followed by sobering thuds as they pulverised anything in their deadly path. I bent over and charged forwards to make myself a smaller target.
I aimed for the tank, keeping my eyes fixed on her without blinking as my arms pumped my whole body in a surging motion. I kept my eyes fixed firmly on the faded caricature of the duck, watching it bob violently up and down, as if I stood on the deck of a distressed ship. My teeth ached as I clamped them down on one another, and I hissed out of the side of my mouth as I sucked and expelled air as quickly as I could, saliva seeping out of the seal as I pounded my way across the uneven ground.
I felt the revolver make a leap for freedom out of my hand, and a renewed, more intense grasp around the grip of it sent a shooting pain up my arm.
I was a few feet from the tank now, and I chanced a look away from the faded paintworks adorning Doris. I could make out the door opening before the Lieutenant Harper’s head peered inquisitively around the side. He looked surprised to hear so much gunfire and chaos, like he had just been rudely awoken while he lay sunbathing on the seafront. He looked even more surprised when the figure charging towards him erupted.