No Man's Land

by Reginald Hill

  ‘Please, I suggest you decide by dawn. But after that, anyone who stays stays under my command. It is essential.’

  But it was just before dawn that their minds were made up for them.

  Groom was standing guard. The night was full of explosions and rocket lights and on several occasions he heard the sounds of troop movement and once the neighing of horses and creaking of wheels as though a field artillery unit were on the move, but always half a mile or so distant and always fading away to the west.

  Then as the day grew grey, he spotted movement on the ridge immediately above the farm. Whoever was coming down there could hardly avoid the buildings.

  He returned to the barn and alerted the inmates.

  ‘Quickly,’ Lothar commanded the men. ‘Out of sight. Hurry!’

  They concealed themselves as best they could up in the rafters of the barn where the few boards of the old hayloft which hadn’t been used for building or as fuel remained. A few minutes later they heard someone cautiously trying the door.

  Lothar, stooped and using a stick like a man at least twice his age, opened it.

  Immediately he was thrust back at the end of a revolver held by an exhausted-looking English lieutenant.

  ‘Stand still. Who’s in here? Come on. Speak! Dîtesmoi, qui est ici monsieur? Parlez vite!’

  Lothar replied, breaking from time to time into English as execrable as the lieutenant’s French, that his wife, mother, son and daughter were here, no one else, and the old lady was sick, and his young son was wounded, and he begged the lieutenant for transport and medical help to get them to hospital.

  It was a nice piece of psychological judgement.

  Within minutes the Englishman was apologizing for not being able to help.

  ‘No medics, pas de docteur, pas de transport aussi, monsieur,’ he said. And he begged permission for his men to rest in the farmyard for a while and refresh themselves with water from the pump.

  They were, Lothar gathered, the remnants of a unit who had held off the advancing Germans at the expense of heavy losses and finally, giving up hope of reinforcement, they had withdrawn under cover of darkness.

  ‘They won’t be far behind us,’ explained the lieutenant. ‘Listen, monsieur. We are going now. Nous départons! You really ought to get out too. But I see your problem. Here’s what I suggest. Put up a white flag. Un drapeau blank, comprends? Otherwise they might drop a few shells just in case. But you’ll be all right with a white flag. Some of the Boche are quite decent chaps, you know. Mustn’t believe all you read in John Bull. Sorry, don’t suppose you get John Bull here, do you? Look, we’d better be off. Bon chance, monsieur. Au revoir!’

  He touched his cap and left. Lothar shook his head in amused disbelief. There was something about the English middle classes, he didn’t know what it was, but he feared it was going to prove a large stumbling-block to the spread of world revolution.

  Shortly after the English had left, a steady bombardment of the ridge began. The artillery Groom had heard moving in the night must have relocated themselves somewhere to the south and were banging away at the high ground in an effort to inhibit the German advance. But Lothar after listening for a while knew how few guns were involved and guessed that any delay would not be for long.

  ‘Looks like we’ve got to stay now, Fritz,’ said Groom. ‘We’re right in no-man’s land here. Go either way and we’re likely to get shot.’

  Lothar thought a while, then said, ‘Yes, but we must not risk you being found as though Madame Gilbert is hiding you. Either you hide in the byre, and pretend you know nothing of the family if the Germans catch you. Or else you stay here, and when the Boche arrive, we can tell them that you are British soldiers who wish to surrender. Who knows? Perhaps you have a better chance of returning home from a prisoner-of-war camp than from a British military prison.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ said Groom feelingly. ‘What say you, Nelson?’

  ‘I say beggars can’t be choosers,’ said Nelson. ‘Is there any grub going? Never know when we’ll get our next square meal. It’s all black bread and potato soup in the Boche lines, ain’t it, Fritz?’

  Madeleine prepared some food while Lothar and Nicole tended Josh’s wound. The boy seemed stronger in himself, though his speech was still badly impaired. The old lady was still fast asleep, and it was Lothar’s guess that she was slipping into a coma from which there would be no return, but it was pointless saying anything to Madeleine.

  They settled down to a silent breakfast, silent as far as speech went, that is. Outside the German guns were seeking the range of the British battery and with far greater power at their disposal.

  ‘What about this white flag, Fritz?’ asked Hepworth.

  ‘Yes, it will soon be time. Wait till the guns stop,’ said Lothar. ‘Once the troops are advancing, that is the time. A white flag means something to soldiers on foot. To artillery observers it is just a sighting aid. The shells are nowhere near us at the moment. Let us not do anything to attract them.’

  It was well into the morning before the guns went quiet, or at least relatively so.

  Madeleine had prepared a large sheet which they now nailed on to a pole which consisted of two six-foot lengths of narrow planking lashed together.

  Hepworth and Groom climbed to the barn roof while some of the others pushed the flag up from below.

  Viney looked on with the indifference of one to whom all flags were meaningless. Lothar had not yet cared to probe into the Australian’s intentions, not doubting that they would become clear in his own time.

  Suddenly Hepworth on the roof cried, ‘Hold on! Someone’s coming.’

  ‘Be quick then!’ shouted Lothar anxiously.

  ‘No! Not the Huns. Up the valley. It looks like a motorbike and sidecar.’

  For a second Lothar was undecided.

  Then Viney said laconically, ‘If it’s the Brits coming back, you’d best not have them jokers cluttering up the roof.’

  He was right of course.

  ‘Quickly, get down!’ ordered Lothar. ‘Everyone into the barn, Hurry!’

  The two men on the roof scrambled down. The flag was resting against the side of the barn. Lothar gave it a push so that it toppled to the ground, then ushered the others through the door.

  ‘How many?’ he asked Hepworth.

  ‘Don’t know. Only saw the mo’bike,’ said Hepworth. ‘But there could be a whole regiment behind them.’

  It sounded an unlikely formation to Lothar but, large or small, the group that was on its way spelt danger.

  The only consolation was that whatever soldiers of whatever army arrived next at the farm, they would surely be far too preoccupied with large-scale military matters to have many thoughts spare for deserters.

  Lothar for once was absolutely wrong.

  Jack Denial had been neither displeased nor relieved when an ancient and very bellicose infantry major and a couple of platoons of riflemen had joined his irregular force in Barnecourt shortly before dawn.

  The major was no more certain than anyone else of the full extent of the German breakthrough, but was clearly hopeful of grasping some late glory to rejuvenate an undistinguished and dying career.

  ‘The next chappies who come over that ridge will be Huns,’ he said with grave certainty as he made his dispositions. ‘We’re short on ammo and we’ve only got a couple of Lewis guns to back up the rifles, so we’ll let them come right up to us before we let fly.’

  It was as well he made this decision because, when the first approaching figures were observed a mile or more away, he would certainly have given the order to blast away had any artillery pieces been at his disposal. It was Sergeant-Major Maggs peering through Denial’s binoculars who said, ‘Them’s some of our lads, sir.’

  Denial looked, then reported this to the major who was suitably disappointed.

  ‘Better make contact, let ’em know we’re here, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Silly asses might take us for Boche otherwise.’


  Denial, glad of an excuse to separate himself from this embodiment of all that he found most distressing among his brother officers, volunteered to go forward on his motorbike. Sergeant-Major Maggs sat in the sidecar with a white flag fluttering to reassure the approaching troops.

  Fifteen minutes later he was talking with the lieutenant in charge of the retreating men.

  ‘They’ll be here soon,’ forecast the young man. ‘You say they’ve been in Barnecourt already?’

  ‘Just an isolated unit. We were able to push them out. But they’ll be back.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed the lieutenant. ‘They won’t make the same mistake twice. Next time they’ll blast the place flat. Any civilians left down there?’

  ‘No, they’ve all packed up and gone.’

  ‘Very wise. There are some, people back at an old farmhouse up there. I tried to persuade the chappie to leave, but there’s a sick old woman evidently, and she couldn’t be moved. I hope they’ll be OK.’

  ‘I think I know the place,’ said Denial, frowning. ‘This chap, very old fellow, was he?’

  ‘Not particularly,’ said the lieutenant. ‘He walks as if he were an old man, but he had quite a young face. Why, what’s your interest?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ said Denial. But he was thinking: The boy had been killed, hadn’t he? And hadn’t he heard that the old man had died also? If not him, then who …?

  ‘Well, we’d better be on our way. We’ve rested long enough,’ said the lieutenant. ‘I don’t want to be caught out in the open again. Coming?’

  ‘Not yet. I think we’ll scout around a little more, see what we can see,’ answered Denial vaguely.

  Sergeant-Major Maggs did not look too happy at the idea but said nothing.

  ‘One thing,’ said Denial as the weary soldiers rose to their feet once more. ‘The major back there, he’s not in touch with anyone as far as I can see. And unless he gets orders to the contrary, I think he’s set on holding Barnecourt to the last drop of everyone’s blood. Goodbye now.’

  He sent the motorbike up the track.

  Glancing back a minute later, Maggs said, ‘They don’t seem to be going down into the village, sir. They’ve moved off to the south, like.’

  ‘Have they?’ said Denial indifferently.

  ‘And what about us, sir? Aren’t we heading back to Barnecourt?’

  It was a protest rather than a genuine question with the village rapidly receding behind them.

  ‘Eventually perhaps, Mr Maggs,’ said Denial. ‘But first of all I want to see if I can make contact with another force. What was it that dying Welshman called them? Viney’s Volunteers!’

  8

  It was a bright spring day with high clouds being swept along by a gusting wind, but it was the smaller clouds no bigger than men’s fists punching away at the lower sky, that held Sergeant-Major Maggs’s attention. No longer did they mark a definite horizon but seemed to flourish in all directions, and their accompaniment of gasping, grunting explosions swelled and faded like birdsong in the uncertain wind.

  But one thing was certain in Maggs’s mind; they were heading in the one direction where there were definitely Germans. He didn’t know whether to be glad or distressed when they finally reached their destination. Here they would at last be able to turn back, but not before the pair of them had checked this lonely farmhouse to see if it contained some of the most desperate criminals ever to desert from the Army. This was not how Maggs had envisaged his next encounter with Viney and his gang.

  And his discomfiture was complete when Captain Denial said, ‘Take care of the bike, Sergeant-Major,’ and walked up to the barn door and calmly knocked.

  After a while a woman answered, her narrow strong face expressing neither curiosity nor surprise, though not even her powers of control could conceal the great weariness that was eating through into the very core of her being. She did not speak.

  ‘Madame Gilbert,’ said Denial in slow, precise French. ‘We have met before, madame, perhaps you recall. I am Captain Denial, Assistant Provost Marshal of this area. Would you please to tell Sergeant Viney of His Majesty’s Australian Army that I am here and would like to discuss certain matters with him?’

  For answer, Madeleine opened the door wide and stepped aside. Denial removed his cap and entered.

  Maggs, who had wheeled the motorbike into the lee of the byre and was standing with his rifle at the ready, shook his head in a gesture that went beyond amazement.

  It came as no surprise a couple of minutes later when a burly man appeared at the barn door, looked in his direction, beckoned and said in a Yorkshire accent, ‘You’d best come in too.’

  ‘Hands up,’ ordered Maggs instinctively.

  ‘Don’t be bloody daft,’ said the Yorkshireman and disappeared.

  Maggs waited a moment, then with a despairing shrug, followed him into the building.

  As he stepped through the door, his arms were seized and his rifle removed from his unresisting hand. He was then pushed firmly but not roughly through another door and miraculously what had been a barn became a farmhouse living-room.

  A fire burned in a grate. There was a smell of stewing vegetables from the pot suspended over it. In a square-shaped bed in a corner near the fire lay the waxy-pale figure of an old lady. And in front of the fire, seated by a table on a low stool, was Captain Denial.

  Opposite him sat a big man whom Maggs recognized instantly.

  ‘Hello, sport,’ said Viney. ‘Nice of you to pay us a visit. Take a pew.’

  Maggs sat. There were other people in the room. His heart sank as he looked at them. All the stories he’d heard of subhuman cannibalistic gangs living on the detritus of ancient battlefields suddenly seemed utterly credible in the presence of this bunch of unshaven, wildeyed, ragged-clothed madmen. No one spoke, and a silence grew inside that room that ultimately became more oppressive and intrusive than the constant rumble of artillery fire.

  ‘What’s your game, sport?’ asked Viney finally.

  ‘I just thought I’d like to be sure you really were here,’ said Denial. ‘It’s a satisfaction to me.’

  ‘How’d you know?’

  ‘Small clues. A dead corporal outside HQ. Something a dying Welshman said.’

  ‘Taff? Taff’s dead?’ said Hepworth in dismay.

  ‘I’m afraid so. The Germans in Barnecourt.’

  ‘Oh shit. He were a grand chap.’

  Viney brushed aside these irrelevancies and said, ‘I mean, what’s your game, just walking in here? If you thought mebbe this was where you’d find me, you’re taking a bit of a chance, ain’t you, Cap?’

  ‘I doubt if in present circumstances I could have got an arresting party together,’ said Denial. ‘The Sergeant-Major and I didn’t seem to have the fire-power to take you ourselves. But I did want to be sure.’

  ‘Well, now you’re sure. What next?’

  ‘Nothing. We sit and wait. You ran away from the war, Sergeant Viney. And your comrades here too, I presume. But you didn’t run far enough. The war’s coming after you. You can’t avoid it now.’

  ‘No,’ said a tall blond man with bitter vehemence. ‘You are wrong, Captain. None of us here ran from the war. We took the war with us. This is the dreadful thing. We took the war with us. In here. And here.’

  He tapped his head and his breast.

  Denial looked at him curiously.

  ‘You, I take it, are Count von Seeberg?’ he said.

  Lothar was taken aback by this identification.

  ‘My father is Graf von Seeberg, yes,’ he said.

  ‘Your father is dead, Count,’ said Denial. ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘What the hell’s all this?’ growled Viney, whom the new situation seemed to have restored to his old strength. ‘You some sort of aristo, Fritz? And you talking like a bloody communist! Jesus!’

  Lothar, pale with shock at this sudden intrusion of his old life, said, ‘How do you know these things?’

  ‘Lieutenant Cowper of the cavalry
. You’ll recall him, I dare say.’

  ‘Ah, of course,’ murmured Lothar. ‘So. An Englishman’s word? He promised not to speak of me.’

  ‘He didn’t. He hardly could, could he? It was just a note on a scrap of paper in his pocket. I checked the name.’

  ‘Why do you say he could not speak?’ asked Lothar.

  ‘Why? Because one of your murdering bastards had stuck a knife in his ribs, hadn’t he?’ broke in Maggs, who had got over his first sense of intimidation.

  Lothar’s expression of horrified surprise convinced Denial he genuinely knew nothing of this. The German looked accusingly at Viney, who in his turn gazed steadily at Coleport, who laughed.

  ‘You’re not the only one handy with a weapon, Viney,’ he mocked. ‘Though me, I only use mine on the enemy!’

  Viney moved towards him, this time clearly intent on knocking him down.

  ‘I shouldn’t bother,’ said Denial. ‘Listen.’

  Out of the wallpaper of shellfire they traced a single rogue line of noise screaming towards them. The shell was a big one and even though it exploded a little distance beyond the farm, they felt its power through the trembling of the floor and walls.

  ‘The war is coming,’ said Denial, with some satisfaction. ‘I will be curious to see if you can murder your way out of this.’

  Another shell fell even closer.

  Everyone was on his feet except Denial.

  ‘They are targeting the farm,’ cried Lothar. ‘We have not put up the white flag.’

  ‘Probably too late for that, sport,’ cried Viney.

  And as if in support of his assertion, there was a huge explosion almost on top of them, breaching one of the outer walls of the barn, ripping part of the roof away, and sending everyone crashing to the floor.

  Madeleine was the first to her feet, coughing in the smoke and dust-filled air as she staggered to her mother’s bed. The old lady was lying staring with alert and unpuzzled eyes at the puff-ball-filled sky which had suddenly appeared over her head. Hepworth, his head bleeding from a graze, came to join her.

  ‘Maman!’ cried Madeleine.