by Pat Kelleher
Lance Corporal Ketch, 1 Section’s second in charge, entered, bringing in the post. He was a small man with a pock-marked face; just a shade too tall for the Bantams, worse luck, so they were stuck with him. His gimlet eyes glowered with resentment as he began handing out the brown paper and string packages and ivory envelopes. It seemed to be against his nature for anyone to have any measure of happiness.
Atkins leaned forwards eagerly, poised for his name. His heart began to pound in his chest, waiting for news, but dreading it at the same time.
“Porgy one for you, Package for Mercy. Half Pint. Gazette, two! Pot Shot, Lucky...”
The men snatched them up eagerly and were momentarily lost in their own private worlds as they proceeded to open them.
“Gazette and Pot Shot are on sentry duty, ” said Gutsy, taking theirs.
“And lastly Juh Juh-Ginger,” sneered Ketch, holding out a package towards a nervy, curly-haired blonde lad who was feeding a rat he’d tamed, taken for a pet and named Haig.
‘Ginger’ Mottram had made it through the entire summer without a scratch, but he was a wreck. Shell-shock, they called it. Malingering, Ketch said, but then he would. Ketch deliberately waved the package just out of his reach, taunting him. Ginger went bright red. The lad blushed so often they joked that one day his hair would turn red, hence his nickname.
“Guh-guh-give it here!” stammered Ginger.
“Leave it out, Ketch,” warned Mercy. Ketch thrust the package into the lad’s hand, his fun spoiled.
“Corp?” said Atkins leaning forward hopefully.
“Atkins,” said Ketch gleefully. “Expecting something were you?”
“Yes.”
Ketch made a show of patting himself down. “No, Sorry. Nothing.”
“Ketch!” snapped Mercy, looking up from his own letter. “Only’s brother is missing f’fuck’s sake. He was hoping for news.”
“Fuck you, Evans,” muttered Ketch as he retired to his bunk.
Sergeant Hobson’s ample frame filled the dugout door. “It’s getting late, ladies. Time to get your beauty sleep. Waiting’s over. Word has come down. We’ll be up early and going over the top first wave tomorrow. Check your weapons. Where’s Lance Sergeant Jessop?”
“NCO of the watch, Sarn’t,” said Mercy.
“Sarn’t?”
“Yes, Hopkiss?”
“It’s just that there’s not much of a bombardment from our lot,” he said jerking his chin in the direction of the Front. It was true. The night’s artillery fire was sporadic at best.
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it, Hopkiss. You just turn up in your Sunday Best for tomorrow’s little promenade and we’ll go for a nice stroll in No Man’s Land. I’m sure wiser heads than yours have got it sorted,” he said, turning to go.
“That’s what we’re worried about, Sarn’t,” said Mercy.
Hobson’s eyes narrowed as he strode across the dugout.
“You think too much, Evans, do you hear me?” he said sternly, rapping Mercy sharply on the head. “And you do it out loud. If that ain’t a bad habit I don’t know what is. Don’t let me hear you do it again!”
Evans winced and rubbed his scalp.
“Yes, Sarn’t. Sorry, Sarn’t.”
“I’m watching you laddie,” said Hobson as he left. “Ketch, I need a Black Hand Gang for a bit of business tonight. I want three volunteers to meet me in F8 at two Ack Emma. See to it.”
“Right,” said Ketch, gleefully. “Hopkiss and Blood? You’ve just volunteered.”
Ketch took his time, letting his eyes roam over the rest of the men, making sure to meet each of their eyes as if daring them to challenge him. His gaze settled on Atkins. Atkins, suddenly aware of the silence, glanced up. “Something better to do Atkins? Not now you haven’t.”
ATKINS WAS WOKEN by Gutsy shaking him. The last vestiges of warmth and wellbeing slipped away as realisation of where he was rushed in. “Only? Come on lad, it’s time. Let’s get this over and done with.”
Wearing leather jerkins, carrying their bayonets in sheaths, their faces blackened with burnt cork, the Black Hand Gang, Atkins, Gutsy and Porgy, made their way past scurrying rats up to the fire bay, where Hobson and Ketch were waiting for them.
There was a faint fwoosh as an enemy flare went up. It burnt a stark white, casting deep shadows on the wall of the trench that wobbled and tilted as the flare drifted down, until at last they ate up the last of the light and filled the trench again.
‘Gazette’ Otterthwaite and ‘Pot Shot’ Jellicoe were on sentry duty. Even in the dim light it was hard to miss Pot Shot. He was a large man, a shade over six foot, tallest man in the Battalion; the only man who had to crouch when stood on the firestep lest his head present a tempting target for German snipers.
Gazette was up on the firestep on sentry duty, Pot Shot sat on the step beside him, slumped against the side of the bay and snoring gently, his rifle clasped to his chest like a loved one. Gazette glanced down at them and kicked Pot Shot awake.
“All right, lads?” he yawned.
That helped ease the queasy feeling in Atkins’ stomach. Gazette was the best sharp shooter in the platoon. If anyone was going to have your back on a Black Hand job you’d want it to be him.
There was a pile of equipment on the firestep by his feet.
“Right,” said Hobson, “take these.” He handed out pistols; Webley revolvers, usually reserved for officers but more practical in situations, such as this, that called for stealth. They each had their own bayonet and there were two sets of long-armed wirecutters. Atkins and Porgy got those. Hobson also gave them each a grey military issue blanket that he instructed them to wear across their backs in the manner of a cloak.
“It’ll help disguise your outline against German flares. If a flare goes up, don’t move. You’ll want to throw yourself on the ground but don’t, they’ll spot the movement and you’re a goner. If you freeze you could be tree stump, a shadow or a body on the wire,” he told them. “We’re goin’out to cut the German wire in preparation for tomorrow. So we make sure we do the job properly or it’ll be us and our mates paying the price if we don’t. We also want to take a shufti and make sure Fritz isn’t planning any nasty surprises. Don’t worry, I’ll have you all back in time for the big show.”
“Thanks, Sar’nt. You’re a real pal,” said Gutsy.
“Time for a fag, Sar’nt?” asked Hopkiss, trying to delay the inevitable.
“No. Follow me. Stick to me like glue. No one talks but me. Make sure you stay within an arm’s length of the next fellow. If you get lost make your way back here. And make sure you dozy ha’porths don’t forget the password: Hampstead.”
Atkins checked his bayonet in its sheath. He checked the chambers of the Webley revolver. They were full. The pistol had a loop fastened to the handle, which he slipped round his wrist.
There being no sally port available, Hobson put a ladder up against the revetment and was about to step on the bottom rung when another flare went up. He stopped, waited for the flare to die out, before rolling over the sandbag parapet with practised ease. His arm appeared back over the bags signalling the next man up. Porgy was already on the ladder and climbing. Gutsy stepped on below him and began his climb. It was Atkins’ turn next. As he stepped on the bottom rung, he felt a hand pat his thigh.
“Good luck, mate,” said Gazette. Aktins smiled weakly. He could feel his heart lifting him fractionally from the ladder with every beat as he lay against the rungs. He hadn’t felt a funk like this since that last night with Flora.
“Cheers. I’ll be back for breakfast.”
Another flare.
Above him, Gutsy froze, waiting for the light to die. Atkins looked up. All he could see was Gutsy’s big khaki-covered arse eclipsing everything. Blood let one rip and looked down between his legs, grinning.
“Fuck’s sakes, Gutsy!” hissed Gazette. “At least with the yellow cross we get a warning. Where’s me bloody gas helmet?”<
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A hiss rasped from over the parapet. “Get a move on, you two!”
Puffing, Gutsy rolled over the sandbags with as much grace as a carcass in his old butcher’s shop.
Atkins reached the top of the ladder. The nightscape before him never failed to chill him to the core. No Man’s Land. It was a contradiction in terms. You were never alone in No Man’s Land. During the day it was quiet, with generally nothing but the odd buzz of a sniper’s bullet cutting low over the ground or the crump of a Minniewerfer to disturb it. At night, though, it became a hive of activity; parties out repairing wire, laying new wire, digging saps, running reconnaissance, conducting trench raids. Both sides knew it. It was the most dangerous of times to be out and never dark for long, as flares burst in the air, momentarily illuminating bleak Futurist landscapes that left hellish after-images in the mind’s eye.
He saw Hobson and Porgy about four or five yards ahead, crawling along on their bellies. Gutsy was to his left. Atkins crawled forward using his elbows and knees. The mud was cold and slimy and within a minute his entire front, from chin to toes, was soaked. He and Gutsy made their way to where Sergeant Hobson and Porgy were waiting. About twenty yards ahead, they could make out the vague unearthly shapes of their own wire entanglements. Sergeant Hobson indicated a piece of soiled, white tape in the mud that led them to the gap in their own wire.
Now they truly were in No Man’s Land.
They crawled on, their progress achingly slow. Every time a flare bloomed in the sky, they would press themselves into the mud. It took them nearly an hour to crawl through the blasted landscape—peppered as it was with shell holes—up the gently inclining slope towards Harcourt Wood. About them Atkins could hear the foraging corpse rats feasting on the bodies of the fallen. They reached the German wire, some thirty yards short of a low stone wall that bordered the wood. There was a muffled shout, some distance over to the left and a brief spatter of machine gun fire, then nothing.
More waiting.
Hobson gestured to the left and rolled with a barely perceptible splash into a shallow shell hole just short of the wire. The others followed. Atkins slithered over the shallow lip to join them and found himself in a pool of water. Hobson beckoned them closer with a finger. They gathered their heads together while Hobson spoke in a low, slow voice.
“Wirecutters get ahead. Blood and I will cover you. If it all goes off, get back here sharpish. Got it? Just don’t take all night about it.”
Atkins nodded. As they crawled out of the shell hole toward the wire, Hobson and Gutsy took up their positions on the lip of the crater, pistols cocked and ready.
Atkins looked at Porgy as they reached the entanglement. Porgy crawled forward with his cutters, slipped the blades around the wire and snipped. There was a sharp tink and a dull tinny twang recoiled along the wire. Atkins froze until long after the sound died away, expecting a burst of machine gun fire to cut them down at any moment. But nothing happened. Porgy cut again.
Atkins gripped the wire between his own cutter blades and snipped, and snipped again. It took nearly an hour to cut though the entanglement, working his way along on his back under the thicket of Jerry wire until his arms ached and his muscles burned, but eventually it was done. A section of wire five or six yards across had been freed from its mooring.
They made their way back to the shell hole.
“All present and correct?” whispered Hobson. “Good. Let’s be off home shall we?”
As they began the slow crawl back towards their own lines, something gave way under Atkins’ palm and his left arm sank up to his elbow in the thick mud. A bubble formed on the surface and popped, releasing a cloying, sickly stench. His hand had gone through a corpse’s gas-distended stomach. Disturbed, several corpulent rats squeaked indignantly and darted off. He heaved, retching up several lumps of army stew and pulled his hand out of the mud. In an attempt to put some distance, any distance, between him and the corpse, he planted a knee down only to feel a crack of bones somewhere just below the surface of the slime. A red flare went up bathing everything in a hellish glow. Atkins looked down with horror to see the decomposing face of a French soldier lit by the lurid light, making shadows dance in the empty sockets of its eyes.
A burst of machine gun fire zipped over their heads. Hobson quickly indicated to a large Minnie crater with a flick of his hand. They headed for it, rolling down into the relative shelter of its shadow.
Unable to stop himself, Atkins slipped helplessly down the slick wet sides into the slurry-filled basin at the bottom, before coming up against wet muddy cloth. Fearing another corpse, he looked about wildly and met the gaze of a German soldier staring back with the same intensity of fear and surprise. They’d stumbled on a German patrol sheltering in the same shell-hole.
Atkins knew he had seconds to act. He clamped a muddy hand over the German’s mouth. The Hun clawed desperately at his wrist. Atkins adjusted his position so he was astride the man’s chest and was able to use his knee to pin the man’s upper arm to the ground, leaving a hand free to unsheath his bayonet. The German tried to bite Atkins’ hand, desperate to stop him. Out the corner of his eyes Atkins made out the other members of his Black Hand Gang engaged in similar private struggles. It was desperate fighting, no rules. This was war at its most raw, most visceral, most base. The only sound was the slap of mud or splash of water as boots sought for purchase on soft tissue; grunts of exertion as the struggle turned first one way then the next, each opponent knowing it was killed or be killed.
Gritted teeth. Little explosions of breath, spittle flecks bubbling up at the corners of the mouth, face red with effort, neck taut with strain as Atkins leant forward trying to use his bodyweight to press his bayonet home. The Hun kicked, trying to dislodge him. The point of his bayonet against the Hun’s ribs. His eyes creasing, pleading, hands slick with mud losing their grip, the bayonet pushing into the thick serge of his uniform but not puncturing. It was all now dependent on who could last out the longest, but Atkins had gravity on his side.
The blade sank suddenly, plunging Atkins’ face unexpectedly towards his enemy’s, whose eyes widened in shock. He tried to focus on Atkins as his hand clawed weakly at his face. Atkins turned away and raised himself to avoid the filthy, clammy hand. Then, hardly able to see for the stinging tears welling up in his eyes he muttered, “sorry,” and used his bodyweight to push the bayonet further in. Blood bubbled and frothed at the corners of the Hun’s mouth. Atkins could feel the warm exhalation of breath on his face waning. The man’s eyes lost focus and beneath him Atkins felt his chest fall for the last time. He collapsed with effort and relief onto the body feeling his heart beating fit to burst, a pulse suddenly pounding painfully at the base of his skull behind his right ear. He rolled over onto his back, his chest heaving with sobs he tried to stifle. To his left he saw Porgy sitting with his head in his hands. Hobson was wiping his bayonet on a German’s tunic. Three Huns lay about the shell hole in unnatural positions. A fourth lay face down in the water. Gutsy grabbed Atkins and pulled him into a sitting position, holding his head between his knees as he dry-retched.
“Get it up, son, you’ll feel better,” Gutsy whispered. Atkins tried to make himself heave. It didn’t take much before he vomited, spitting out the stringy mucus and half-digested bits that remained in his mouth. Gutsy pulled his bayonet from the dead Hun and handed it back to him. “You did well.”
They made their way back to their line but when they came to their wire, they couldn’t find the gap. Following Hobson, they inched their way along the wire, careful not to touch any of the makeshift alarms of tin cans containing pebbles that hung from them before finding one. They edged through and towards their lines until they could see the sandbag parapets of their own trenches. From the dark ahead of them came an aggressive hiss.
“Password.”
“Hampstead,” Hobson hissed back and began crawling forwards, beckoning the others to follow. There was sudden rapid fire, and the whole world went t
o hell. Porgy screamed. A flare went up from the trench. Hobson shouted: “You’re shooting your own bloody men, hold your fire!” There were far away shouts from the German line, a German flare and then the whine of bullets splashing into the mud around them.
Shot at from behind, shot at from in front, Atkins scrambled for the sandbags and the trench. Hands reached up, grabbed him and pulled him over the parapet to safety. Hobson was already over and laying into the Jock sentry with a torrent of sergeantly abuse. Gutsy was sat on the firestep checking himself all over for wounds but there was no sign of Porgy. Atkins stood on the firestep and, against all his better instincts, he peered over the top. He saw something that could be Porgy some five or six yards away. Sporadic shots from the German line continued to bury themselves into the mud around him.
“Only! Only, I’m hit,” whimpered Porgy.
Before he knew what he was doing, Atkins was scrambling over the parapet and wriggling forward on his elbows.
“Come back you bloody fool!”
Atkins slithered on, the odd bullet whining over his head. He reached Porgy who was lying on his side groaning. He gripped Porgy’s hand and pulled, trying to drag him through the mud, but he was too heavy. There only one thing for it. As quickly as he could, Atkins picked him up under the armpits and hauled him backwards, step by muddy step, towards the trench amid the whine and splatter of German bullets. Reaching the sandbags, he tipped the barely conscious Porgy over the parapet and into the arms of his waiting mates, before leaping into the trench after him. Trembling, he sat down heavily on the firestep and watched as Gutsy looked Porgy over.
“Hell’s bells, Porgy you’re a lucky one.”
Atkins could see a bloody groove on Porgy’s left temple where a bullet had grazed him. “Head wound.”
“Good job it didn’t hit anything important, eh?” croaked Porgy. “Barely a scratch, y’daft beggar. You’ll live.”
