In the Shadow of Your Wings

by J. P. Robinson

  “I hope you learn quickly, boy.” The gruff voice spoke up again.

  Oh, I do. Malcolm didn’t bother to voice his thought aloud. He had a life to live, revenge to obtain. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

  Without another word they turned back to their game, and Malcolm crawled on his knees to the side of the trench, chest still heaving. As he moved, he felt something hard press against his thigh. He glanced down to see a stiffened arm that had been separated from its owner sticking up out of the mud. Yelping, he scuttled away from the gruesome reminder of war’s realities.

  The thought that he could die in this deplorable pit suddenly became very real. Fear, harsh and unforgiving, numbed his mind as he sat in soaking clothes on the cold, muddy ground. His head slumped against the wall and he rolled his eyes toward the sky, trying to make sense of the madness that surrounded him.

  As the train had chugged from Etaples to Belgium, the shades of green that washed over the land had surrendered to a dark, lifeless sterility. The grasping hand of death had stripped the surroundings of every shadow of life. The trees, the grass, the birds had all vanished, leaving behind an unimaginable void. Death. Everything was dead.

  The trenches were about six feet tall and ran on for miles—or so he had been told—each scarring the land like a violent slash of a knife made by a giant hand. At night, gas-powered lamps sent a few tentative rays of light into the darkness. There were no shelters apart from the occasional coverings for cooking fires. He would eat, sleep, and possibly die in the open with only corpses, rats, and desperate men for company.

  Malcolm thrust his face between his palms and groaned.

  “You alright?”

  Peering through slits between his fingers, Malcolm grimaced at the sound of Will’s voice. He had avoided the man for most of the journey but, as they approached their destination, he realized it would better suit his purpose to mend ties with the grieving father.

  “I’m squatting in a pile of mud and filth. I almost had my head blown off because I stood up for one second.” Lifting his hands from his face, he glowered at Will, who hunkered next to him, cradling his rifle on his knees. “And to top it all off, I just sat on a decomposing corpse!”

  “You’re alive,” Will said, dropping his gaze. “You’re better off than some.”

  Malcolm considered him carefully. Something about Will was different. His eyes roamed restlessly about as though looking for someone or something, and his entire body seemed poised to attack.

  “Yeah.” He nodded to Will. “I’ll take the mud and stink over hell’s fires any day. What about you? You alright?”

  Will’s eyes focused on him and Malcolm flinched at the violent light that blazed in those dark eyes.

  “I’m ready.” It was more a growl than a reply.

  Malcolm shrugged. “Ready? Ready for—”

  The whirling thump of a shell as it smashed into the ground outside the trench made the earth around him tremble.

  Whoomp! Another explosion rocked the ground. He dropped his rifle.

  “Take your positions!” The stentorian voice of Lieutenant-Colonel James Stewart transformed the trench into a flurry of activity. “The Huns are comin’ for their supper. Let’s feed ‘em iron grits and leaden balls!”

  Men abandoned whatever they were doing, grabbed their weapons, and sloshed through the muddy water toward the opposing wall. They waited for the call.

  A chill slid down Malcolm’s spine, pinning him to the ground. It’s time. The prospects of facing his first battle made his mind spin. Today could mark the beginning of his rise to glory. Today he could die. Today—

  “Are you ready, you bawfaces?”

  “Sir, yes sir!” The shout rippled down the line, rising above the thunder of another exploding bomb.

  Will had morphed into a blur of motion at the commander’s first call. Now he spun around.

  “Come on.” He scurried back and grabbed Malcolm by the shoulder, dragging him forward. “They’re coming.”

  Malcolm stooped and grabbed his rifle. Like himself, this battle would be Will’s first. He should be scared but the man from the streets seemed almost eager for the fight. Maybe he was used to violence.

  “Let’s go!” Will clapped him on the shoulder. “You said it yourself; they killed my girl, now we kill them!”

  Malcolm lurched after him, throwing his body against the earthen wall. Next to him stood a short ladder. That’s just peachy. Only six steps to my death. He gripped his bayoneted rifle between sweaty fingers and glanced over his shoulder. Hundreds of men had done the same. They waited, hearts pounding, heads tilted toward the skies. Some muttered prayers while others cursed the rain of fire that fell from heaven.

  Then, as suddenly as the bombardment of heavy artillery began, it stopped. Another sound filled the air. Every hair on the back of Malcom’s neck bristled. It was not the screams of madmen. It was not the blistering fire of rifles. It was the methodical stomping of thousands of German boots as they leaped out of their own trenches and stormed across no-man’s land.

  His mind whirled as his breath came in short bursts. He would die today. There was no doubt of that. Do I pray? God would not hear him. He could do nothing but choke back his fear and wait for the command to run to his death. He swallowed, hard. You can do this Malcolm.

  “Ready!” Stewart’s command sent a jolt of lightning through his heart. “Fight for your honor. Fight for your families. Fight for freedom!

  I can do this.

  His heart slowed to a crawl.

  “Over the top, lads!”

  With a bestial roar that erupted from thousands of throats, the men of Great Britain’s 28th Division—a combination of the Northumberland Fusiliers and dozens of other cohorts—scrambled up the ladders and rushed over the top of the trenches, into the heart of no-man’s-land.

  WILL ADVANCED IN A half-crouch, lips curled in a snarl. The sunlight that streamed down from heaven did nothing to melt the ice that glaciated his heart. The qualms that had made him reluctant to take human life had melted when Malcolm’s words had sunk into his mind. All I noticed was the corner of a blue blanket sticking out from under a pile of stone. Abby was dead. Murdered.

  Bullets sped past his head and deafening screams rose on all sides as British soldiers rushed forward to engage the enemy. Not humans. Beasts.

  A face materialized before him, framed by a spike helmet. The soldier grinned as he discharged his rifle, but Will had already thrown himself to one side. He spun around and wielded the butt of his gun as he would a club, slamming it into the man’s temple. Animals. With a shriek, his opponent fell, clutching at his bleeding head.

  Baby-killers! He gripped his rifle with both hands and planted one foot on his enemy’s chest.

  The man shrieked again, eyes rolling wildly in his sockets. He held up his hands and Will didn’t need to speak his language to know that he was pleading for mercy. But there was no mercy in his heart.

  Abby. An image of his daughter being blown to bloody pieces by a German bomb filled his mind. Will jerked the rifle back and, with a mangled scream that matched that of the man on the ground, he plunged the bayonet downward.

  FRITZ HABER PACED BEHIND the German line, adrenaline preventing him from keeping still. Today marked the beginning of his highest achievement. He glanced behind him to where the Kaiser himself observed from a safe vantage point. Haber’s stomach wadded itself into a stiff ball. Today his sun would rise to eternal brilliance or it would plummet from the sky.

  “The wind is ready.” He waved his arms at Oberleutnant Mattenklott then pointed a gloved hand toward a distant ridge called Gravenstafel. Gravenstafel was the military objective of this division of the German army’s attack. His own objective was much simpler—to turn the breath of life into the kiss of death. If all went well, within the next few hours thousands of Allied soldiers would perish without a single hand being laid upon them.

  “It’s been a stalemate for months.” Oberleut
nant Matteklott nodded. “The men are eager for combat.” He punched a fist into the air. “Give the signal!”

  His subordinate shouted the command to fire and an artilleryman turned a huge German siege gun known as Dicke Bertha, or Big Bertha, toward the town of Ypres.

  The gun belched forth a single shot but was quickly followed by a blistering fusillade from long-range howitzers. Haber smacked his lips and rubbed his gloved hands together.

  “It is six o’clock,” Oberleutnant Mattenklott noted. “Remember the moment, Herr Haber, in which we make history.”

  “Ja.” Haber raised up and down on his tiptoes “Yes!”

  Mattenklott pressed a cotton swath to his mouth and nose and Haber did likewise. “The gas valves are being released.”

  The other team members followed suit and Haber scurried to the edge of the parapet that had been erected for his observation. The group stood on a small rise, secure behind rows of trenches that were tightly-packed with thousands of German soldiers. Like the men who observed from above, their own faces were covered with a type of primitive gas mask—cotton dampened with water and held in place by leather straps.

  Ahead, swathed in protective gear, teams of chemical experts scuttled about large steel containers called “batteries” that had been camouflaged to prevent detection by allied planes. Within seconds, each team would work together to pull back a large lever that would release their portion of the poisonous cloud.

  Haber gripped the commander’s arm forcefully. “Look!”

  Riveted, he followed their every movement with his eyes. Hundreds of gas valves slid open in well-coordinated tandem releasing one hundred fifty tons of chlorine into the atmosphere. The shells that bombarded Ypres prevented Haber from hearing the gas as it escaped its prison of steel, but his eyes detected a yellowish-green sulfurous haze that quickly congealed like a pillar of smoke. A south-east wind carried the haze away from the awaiting Germans toward the Allied French, Canadian, and British forces that surrounded Gravenstafel and the nearby Yser Canal.

  “It’s working.” Throaty laughter bubbled up in his chest. He twisted his neck around in an attempt at catching the Kaiser’s eye. “It’s working!”

  Wilhelm regarded him with cool appraisal, eyes shifting from the swirling mass of death to its father who stood with bated breath. Then, the Emperor of Germany dipped his head in a moment of solemn acclaim and Fritz felt his legs turn to butter. I’ve done it.

  “Congratulations Herr Haber.” Mattenklott clapped him on the back. “Once again, you have brought glory to our nation.”

  Haber stepped closer to the edge, unable to tear his eyes away from the havoc he had spawned. He gestured and someone placed a pair of binoculars into his outstretched palm. The wind whipped his long black coat around his ankles as he gazed down from his heights of glory. Peering through the lens, he gasped. The cloud swept swiftly toward the Allied trenches and the devastation was greater than anything he could have imagined.

  Already, what appeared to be hundreds of the enemy were dropping to the ground, clutching at their throats as though drowning. Still thousands more fled from the cloud, milling about like ants.

  A triumphant howl rose from the ground below as the German horde spilled over the confines of their own position and leapt toward the enemy. They were wolves who had been kept penned for a long time, but now he had unleashed them.

  Haber’s chest heaved with triumph. He spread wide his arms and let the binoculars clatter to the ground. He threw back his head and howled his triumph. They were wolves, German wolves, ready to glut themselves on the kill that darted away in the valley below. Today, he had affirmed his place as supreme leader of the pack.

  The sound of fear—the soprano screams of the dying, the bass voices of the cannons, the booming percussion that made the earth dance—it all swirled like a gyrating melody inside his head. It was a song for the wolves. Music that he had composed to commemorate this most glorious of occasions—the day on which he, Fritz Haber, unveiled a new era of war.

  Chapter 19

  Ypres-Salient, Flanders. April 22, 1915

  Malcolm clambered up the short ladder and hurtled forward then, bending over and clutching his rifle just beyond his knees, he followed a few feet behind Will’s lead. Will had degenerated into a frenzied demon, first repeatedly firing his Enfield with deadly precision and then, when the gun jammed, he charged the enemy, swinging the butt of his rifle. It was as though he wished to personally send the entire Kaiser’s army back to the devil himself.

  A spiked helmet flooded Malcolm’s vision and his pulse surged. He threw his body just out of reach of the curved blade that slashed viciously at his throat only to slip on the slick ground and land hard on his back. Twisting, Malcolm saw his opponent grin wickedly as he raised his arm for the final thrust.

  His fingers twitched as he strained desperately to reach the hilt of the dagger tucked into his boot. A little closer... just a little closer! His eyes widened as the blade began its descent.

  “Ugh!” The German grunted, arching his back as a bayonet punched through his chest and twisted. The muscles of his face contorted and the bayonet was withdrawn. Then his sword fell from nerveless fingers and, he crashed, lifeless, onto Malcom’s chest.

  “Get up!”

  Malcolm shoved the corpse out of the way and glanced up to see Will, chest heaving, and face covered in gore, reaching out to him. Grabbing the outstretched arm, he heaved himself to his feet.

  “If I live through this,” panting, he snatched up his rifle, “remind me to thank you.”

  Ignoring him, Will turned and they trotted across a battlefield that was already strewn with corpses. As they ran, Malcolm felt a chill spread throughout his chest. Never had he seen such utter contempt for human life. To his right, hundreds impaled each other mercilessly on the keen edges of their bayonets, spilling slick bowels onto the barren ground. To his left, bullets from his comrades mowed down the front line of the advancing Germans with savage butchery.

  Everywhere, fire—in the form of howitzer shells—rained down from heaven. It was as though God had finally had enough of humanity’s evil and had decided to end the world here and now.

  “Why? Why, God?” Malcolm’s hoarse shout could not be heard over the cacophony of screaming men and earth-shaking detonations. Move. He dashed forward, with no certain destination in mind. To stay still was to die.

  Flying shrapnel dinged like spattering raindrops against his helmet, slicing into his cheeks and hands. He pulled up short as a soldier’s body disintegrated before his eyes—ripped in pieces by mortar fire—then ran in a zig-zag pattern, outpacing Will and the other Allied soldiers of the 28th division.

  Pulling the trigger on his Enfield, Malcom was rewarded by a sharp, choking scream. Dirt leaped like geysers toward the sky, propelled upward by exploding shells. Every second presented a million ways to die but the horror he felt at the sight of such brutality was overcome by a strange sense of awareness. Never had he felt so alive.

  The smoke rising from the battlefield obscured his view. Before he knew it, he hurtled headlong into a small contingent of German troops. Malcolm’s bayonet ripped into the first man’s chest and punched through his back. But the furious momentum of his charge, coupled with the shock of contact, knocked him off his feet, ripping the rifle from his grasp.

  He threw himself into a roll, dimly hearing the roar of combat as the British soldiers behind him engaged the enemy. A bullet plowed into the ground near his head. He lurched to his feet, dashing grime from his eyes. His rifle was embedded in the man he had just killed so he jerked his pistol from his side and his heavy trencher knife from his boot.

  “Stirb, du Narr!”

  The unintelligible shout came from his left. Malcolm whirled. He fired his pistol. Missed.

  His enemy—a giant of a man—rushed him, his bayonet screaming for Malcolm’s face. At the last possible moment, Malcolm jerked back. The German retaliated with a sharp snap of his rifle butt.
Malcolm cried out as it smashed into his wrist, sending the pistol flying. Pain sliced up and down his arm, but his enemy rushed him again. Ignoring the pain, Malcolm grabbed the stock of the giant’s rifle, trying to wrestle it out of the German’s grasp.

  The German rammed his bulk against Malcolm’s lean frame, throwing him off balance. He swung the butt of his rifle out again but this time, Malcolm slid under the blow. Clutching the hilt of his blade, he screamed in fury as he thrust it into the man’s side. He jerked the blade out and plunged it again. Swiftly flowing blood made his hold on the knife slippery.

  “Du Narr!” Roaring, the giant dropped his own rifle, looped one arm around Malcom’s waist and jerked him off the ground. With his free hand he ripped Malcolm’s rounded helmet off his head, then smashed his own bare head against Malcom’s. Pain exploded in the Englishman’s skull. The German slammed his head forward again while tightening his grip on Malcolm’s ribs.

  The world spun in a lazy arc. Malcolm felt the cords of the German’s muscles squeezing the air out of his lungs.

  Darkness tinged the corners of his vision. Die. I’m going to die. His enemy’s arm tightened as he jerked Malcolm up and down like a rag doll, trying to shake the knife out of his bloodied hand. Finally, enraged and impatient, he pulled his head back, preparing for another headbutt.

  Malcolm waited. He had only one chance at survival and if he misjudged the moment, it would be the last mistake he ever made. Time slowed to a crawl. He saw the German’s face, purple and mottled, twist as his lips curled back over his teeth. The thick cords of his neck punched out as he bellowed his anger. Then his head whipped forward.

  An instant before the man’s skull connected with his own, Malcolm jerked his knife arm up, holding the thick blade in line with the man’s eyes and bracing himself for the impact.