In Line of Fire (Secret Soldiers of World War 1 Book 2)

by David Hough

  DeBoise watched him with increasing curiosity. Cruikshanks gave the appearance of a fearless soldier, but it was the courage of a bygone age. In previous wars he would have been seated astride a white charger in full view of the enemy, his sword raised in defiance. The horse was gone now and the raised sword was gone, but the bravery persisted.

  DeBoise reluctantly gave the senior officer credit for his pluck, dated though it was.

  RSM MacRapper also seemed unafraid of the intense battle noise that surrounded them, but his was a more bombastic fearlessness. He stood on the lip of the trench, in full view as he hurried the men forward.

  “Faster, yew bastards! And get yer heids down!”

  Was the short, muscular Scotsman actually enjoying this fight? Or was he revelling in memories of gang fights in Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday night? For all that he still hated the persona that drove the man, DeBoise allowed himself a moment to admire MacRapper’s nerve.

  As the Scots moved forward, the English regiment was pulled back to join a battle raging closer to the Menin Road. A mud-splattered English soldier crept out of the trench nearby and hissed over a shoulder. “It’s all yours, Jock. And you’re bloody welcome to it.”

  What they were welcome to was a hastily-dug slit trench barely deep enough to protect the Highlanders.

  “All right, get digging, yew blue-arsed bastards!” MacRapper jumped down into the trench and roared at the men near him. “It may have been deep enough for the English, but it’s nae deep enough for me. I want this trench three feet deeper! D’yew hear me?”

  Despite the action continuing around them, the men reluctantly began excavating with their entrenching tools. Did they realise that many of them were making their own graves?

  Within minutes, their kilts were tarnished with a façade of mud. The soil was thrown up on the enemy side and shaped into a parapet with embrasures. And, all the while, the big guns thundered and artillery shells churned up the battlefield around them, clearing away much of the remaining trees and undergrowth. Rifle fire was sporadic, but effective. Men died when they raised their heads too high.

  “That’s it, lads!” MacRapper called out. “We’ll show them Englishmen how to dig a real soldier’s trench, eh?”

  A British machine gun was brought forward and set up on the left of the line where it was able to sweep the enemy’s supposed position.

  Then everything abruptly changed.

  Daylight had finally filled the sky when the cacophony of noise stopped. All along the line, men ceased their endeavours and looked up. Even RSM MacRapper seemed momentarily taken aback by the sudden stillness.

  “Listen. D’ye hear that, sir?” Donohoe tipped back the peak of his cap. “What’s happening?”

  Silence filled the air as DeBoise risked a peek over the trench ridge. Nothing moved, and not even birdsong marred the peace of the autumn morning.

  “I don’t like it, Billy.” DeBoise slid back down into cover and looked along the line.

  The Highlanders waited expectantly. Their expressions told him they knew what was coming. Hardened men, who had seen it all before in other battles in other countries, now showed their wariness with gritted teeth and anxious expressions. A low murmur began to creep along the trench.

  “Pick up yer guns, lads.” MacRapper’s voice echoed along the trench. He sounded calm now, as if he was showing the men his mettle. “The bastard Hun will be coming soon. They’ll be expecting a weakness in the line here, but we’ll show them how a Highland regiment fights.” He raised his bolt-action Lee Enfield and felt in his pack for ammunition.

  “There they are!” A lone voice rang out from the end of the line.

  DeBoise peered again over the top of the trench. He flinched and grasped his Webley pistol tighter. The enemy were far off, but they were advancing towards the Highlanders. A hoard of grey uniforms emerged from the mist, hundreds of them, seemingly showing no hesitation.

  “Stand to! With ten rounds, load!” An authoritative voice came echoing through the haze. It had to be an officer’s voice, firm and decisive with an educated accent. All along the line, the men stood to and pressed the first five rounds into their magazines. The voice continued with no sign of hesitancy. “Load carefully. Don’t rush it.” The second five rounds were loaded and then the bolts pushed the top round into the chamber.

  “Safety catches off! Look to! Watch your front!”

  The enemy were getting close now, almost within target range, but the regiment held their fire. DeBoise realised he was holding his breath. He coughed and tried to breathe normally.

  “Now, lads! Now!” MacRapper didn’t wait for the officer’s voice to give the order. “At six hundred yards… independent fire! Let the bastards have it, lads!” He leaned forward against the side of the trench and began to shoot.

  DeBoise saw two German soldiers fall in quick succession. Others rapidly followed. The Highlanders raked the enemy with devastating fire, picking off targets as soon as they came into range. Some men fell like skittles as the machine gun was brought into play. Others fell one by one. The Scottish riflemen were effective, he conceded. With a taskmaster like MacRapper, they had to be. They worked their bolts with precision, firing off one round every four seconds or less. Empty brass cases soon littered the floor of the trench.

  The German officers waved their swords to urge their men forward, but the formation was breaking as man after man fell dead on the ground. The remainder, the ones who had yet to die, were now only three hundred yards away.

  “Sights down, lads! Carry on firing, and hold fast!” MacRapper shouted even as he fired. And, all along the line, other guns continued to spit out their lethal barrage.

  Donohoe fired his first ten rounds and then drew back to reload. “D’ye know how many soldiers the Hun army has, sir?” He pulled more bullets from his kitbag.

  “Seven million,” DeBoise replied. He carefully aimed his Webley at an advancing German officer, pulled the trigger and watched the man crumple to the ground. “Less one,” he added. But there was no humour in his voice.

  Donohoe took aim again. “Jaysus, seven million, d’ye say? Reckon the whole bloody Hun army is after us right now.”

  “It feels like it.”

  “Do ye think the bastards who shot Danielle might be out there?”

  “Tell yourself they are and keep firing, Billy.”

  There was no concept of time. The attack could have lasted a minute, an hour, or a day. DeBoise loaded and fired, loaded and fired and concentrated solely on making each shot count. He knew he was killing people, but the morality of it was lost behind the essential will to stay alive. His religious convictions were nowhere in sight.

  The noise became a background blur, the grey-uniformed enemy kept advancing, and yet they seemed never to get any closer to the trench. As fast as they came forward, so they were mown down by the withering fire of the machine gun and the Highlanders’ rifles. The killing became a routine.

  Sometime in the conflict – DeBoise had no concept of when – British artillery began a murderous response to the German attack. Crests of flame and fire appeared and disappeared amongst the German troops. Brown and grey crumples of mud rose up like ghosts from out of the uneven ground. The mist remained, or was it smoke now? A line of naked trees was silhouetted on the horizon, like ethereal ghosts with their thin arms caught rigid in the throes of death. The dirty grey sky was splattered with the fall-out of with bursting shells, fiery rings quickly turning to black smudges.

  Figures continued emerging from the smoky mist. DeBoise no longer thought of them as real people. They were grey, shadowy visitors from hell, dancing against the grey background. As exploding shells burst behind them, they grew wings, orangey-yellow for a second and then grey as the flames died and turned to smoke. Then they became flying devils. They flew forwards with their arms spread wide in front of the grey, smudgy wings, and they fell onto the rippling, rumpling mud and were gobbled up by the hellish brown sludg
e. They were lost forever, quickly replaced by more shadowy figures, more grey devils from hell.

  It wasn’t real, DeBoise tried to tell himself as he reloaded and fired again and again. How could all this possibly be real? Real meant human flesh and blood being ripped apart. Real meant people suffering. This had to be an illusion. It would stop in a moment and he would wake up with another nightmare fresh inside his head.

  But it didn’t stop.

  Each shot from his pistol sent another enemy soldier to his death. Each artillery shell explosion sent more devils with wings flying through the stinking air. And then one figure, a lone German soldier, appeared out of the mist only ten yards in front of him, screaming as he ran. DeBoise fired automatically and the soldier crumpled to the ground.

  It wasn’t real.

  It was wrong, very wrong, but it wasn’t happening to him.

  He recoiled when he felt a hand on his shoulder. A stern voice shouted, “I need you, Lieutenant.”

  DeBoise turned to see Cruikshanks crouching behind him. His face was grim, his mouth curled into a deep frown.

  “Sir?”

  “We’re holding the line here, but the bastards have overrun our right flank.” The Colonel stabbed a finger towards the next trench. “Over there! Take twenty men and drive the bastards out!”

  “Now?” He caught a brief recall of that nightmare vision. Only a few seconds, but enough to send a shiver through him.

  “Now, dammit, DeBoise! Go now or I’ll shoot you where you stand!”

  “Sir!” DeBoise tapped Donohoe’s arm. “With me, Billy. And keep your head down.”

  He counted off twenty other men as he made his way along the trench, detailing them to follow him. It was likely a suicide mission, and yet he felt strangely devoid of the intense fear he had known only a few moments earlier. He had no concept of why or how it happened. It just did. It was almost as if his brain was drugged and unable to react in a normal way.

  He paused at the end of the trench.

  “Fix bayonets!” he rasped. How strange that his voice seemed almost confident, as if he was sure about the outcome of this foray.

  Ten yards away, through the mist, he saw that the next trench was the scene of fierce fighting. German troops were pouring over the rim, causing havoc amongst the defending Highlanders. Fierce hand-to-hand fighting was failing to stop the assault.

  DeBoise checked that his pistol was fully loaded. “Follow behind me, Billy. And shoot at anyone who tries to stop us.”

  He gestured the other men to follow, leapt out onto the muddy ground and raced towards the battle. With no conscious thoughts in his mind, he jumped down into the next trench and immediately tangled with the enemy.

  The dead lay two or three deep here. The bodies of Germans and Scots alike lay sprawled where they had died. He aimed his Webley pistol and fired again and again, almost without conscious effort.

  The twenty Highlanders who had followed him dropped down into the trench, firing as they came, bayoneting as soon as they reached the attackers. They shouted out loud as they rammed their weapons into the enemy’s bodies, with ghoulish relish in their voices.

  A huge German Soldat charged towards DeBoise, his bayonetted rifle held out in front. Two feet of lethal cold steel. His mouth was open wide, as if he was screaming, but the sound was drowned out by the noise of battle.

  DeBoise instinctively raised his pistol and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The gun was empty.

  He took a step back and the fear returned.

  This is it, Marie, this is where I die.

  Everything slowed down, everything he saw and heard, everything he thought. He was no longer inside his head. He was floating over the battlefield, watching the German soldier thrusting his bayonet closer and closer, inch by inch. It all seemed so unimportant now, and yet the detail was sharp and obvious. The man had a narrow moustache. How strange that he hadn’t noticed before. His teeth were heavily stained, his clothes muddy.

  Was this how death came on a battlefield?

  Then the Hun stopped abruptly. Movement snatched itself back to normal speed. He was back inside his own head.

  A look of shock crossed the German’s face and he fell to the ground, his arms splayed out in death. Behind him, Private Donohoe withdrew his bayonet from the German’s back.

  “Ye owe me that one, Lieutenant…” Donohoe was almost grinning, almost pleased with what he had done. Then his face suddenly contorted. A splash of red erupted across one shoulder.

  “Billy!” DeBoise leapt towards the youngster, but never reached him. A heavy blow thumped into his left leg. He fell and suddenly everything went black.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  At first, he was frightened of drowning. Not in water, but in mud. Thick, glutinous mud. It was cold, slimy and it filled his mouth. Breath was no longer possible, his lungs no longer worked. He struggled, but it had no effect and so he allowed himself to lie still. Then something strange came over him as he sank deeper into the mire. His fear began to leave him. He was no longer a scared soldier dying in a muddy Flanders forest, he was a soul going back to his roots.

  He was dying.

  “Lieutenant!”

  The voice was far away and he tried to ignore it. It meant nothing to him.

  “Lieutenant!”

  It was louder this time, and closer.

  “Wake up, Lieutenant!”

  He couldn’t ignore it now. It was too insistent.

  He awoke suddenly to the sound of intense artillery fire. His vision was blurred for the first few seconds. His thoughts were confused. He sat up slowly and put a hand to his head. It ached. When he took his hand away he saw that it was covered in blood.

  “Ye’re alive, sir?” The voice drew his attention to where Private Donohoe lay, just a yard away. The boy was ashen-faced and the front of his battledress was soaked in blood.

  “It doesn’t feel like it.” DeBoise gazed along the trench. A long line of kilted bodies stretched away in front of him. None of them moved. A stench of death hung in the air, blown on a breeze driven by the gunfire. He turned back to the young Irishman. “What happened?”

  The youngster’s reply was hoarse, wheezing. “Shot in the leg, so ye were. And ye hit yer head against a log when you fell, sir. Ye were stunned for a few minutes.”

  DeBoise stared at the blood on his hand, then focussed on a tree stump at his feet. “Stunned? What about…” He looked at Donohoe. “Are you all right, Billy?”

  “I’ve been hit, sir. Me shoulder, so ’tis. I couldn’t help ye. I just can’t seem to move me right arm. Hurts like hell.”

  DeBoise crawled closer to the youngster, dragging his injured leg behind him. “You’ve lost a lot of blood, Billy. Let me look at it.”

  His thoughts began to clear as he helped the boy out of his jacket. The pain made the youngster cry out, but the bleeding wasn’t so bad now. “Looks like a nasty wound. Broken bones as well, I shouldn’t wonder. I’d better put a field dressing on it. If I can find one.” His head seemed more alert now, but that only allowed the constant noise to penetrate easier into his brain.

  He was searching amongst his kit when he sensed rather than heard a movement above him. When he looked up, he saw a face with bared teeth.

  “Dee-boys? Is that yew down there?”

  DeBoise took in the grim face of the Highlander staring back at him. “What happened?” he gasped.

  “Yew were beaten, Dee-boys. That’s what happened.” MacRapper jumped down into the trench. “Yew didn’t take the trench like yew were told to. But yew can be thankful the Colonel sent me and some real men after yew. We did the job.”

  “Where are…?”

  “The Huns? Most of them are deid, but some of them are still alive. Look!” MacRapper raised his rifle and fired into the faces of two advancing Germans. Both fell on top of the dead Highlanders. “The fools. Thought they’d killed everyone here. Damn fools!”

  DeBoise struggled to rise to his feet, but
something was wrong. His legs crumbled and he fell again into the mud.

  “Yew’re a stupid Englishman, Dee-boys. Yew canna look after yersel’ and someone like me has tae take care o’ yew.”

  “Just a little stunned. And I’ve taken a bullet in my leg,” he mumbled.

  “Of course yew’re stunned. Yer heid isna thick enough. Come along now.” MacRapper bent and drew the Lieutenant to his feet before swinging him across one shoulder in a single easy movement. Shorter than DeBoise, the Highlander had the physical strength of a man twice his size. “Suppose I’d better get yew back to somewhere safe. Eh? Canna trust yew on yer own, can I?”

  “Private Donohoe…” DeBoise choked as his head swung against the sturdy little man’s back.

  “The wee Irishman can wait until I get back. Yew can, can’t yew, Donohoe?”

  “I think so, Sarn’t Major.” The youngster slowly sat upright. His chest was bared and blood-stained, a contrast to the whiteness of his face.

  The gunfire never ceased as MacRapper carried DeBoise back from the front line, but the Scotsman took no notice of it. “I’ll get yew to an aid post, Dee-boys. Then I’ll go back for the wee Irishman. They’ll soon patch yew up at the aid post.”

  DeBoise felt his head bang against the Scotsman’s back and then he lost consciousness again.

  *

  He looked around and blinked. “Where am I?”

  “Regimental Aid Post, Lieutenant. We’re just about to send you back to the field hospital.” A medical orderly leaned over him. “You were concussed, but you’ll survive. However, they’ll need to dig deep to get the bullet out of your leg. Best that’s done back at the hospital.”

  “How did I get here?”