Made in Myrtle Street (Prequel)

by B A Lightfoot

  Edward had been fascinated by the brash and confident auctioneers, gold fob watches stuck in their wide waistcoat pockets and their thumbs hooked protectively over them, as they strutted around the market ground disposing of groups of unhappy animals in a strange, incomprehensible language. They had been the star performers in that great, open-air theatre but he had, at the same time, been intrigued by the stoic buyers who assessed the cows and sheep with uncommunicative, steely eyes and bought with the merest of nods. He also used to enjoy the generous, boisterous friendliness of the drovers. Their varied accents fascinated him although he often found himself baffled by the Irish. It was a busy, noisy, thrilling experience filled with heady smells and bellowing men and animals but it was ultimately safe and unthreatening for the young lads.

  Liam interrupted his reverie. ‘Eh up. Here’s General Gobshite to give us his pep talk before disappearing into his hidey-hole.’ Major Fforbes-Fosdyke was, indeed, preening himself near the dugout and starting his ‘Alright you chaps. Pay attention now’ routine.

  Behind the Major, Edward could see Big Charlie, who had frequently suffered the biting sarcasm of the Major’s sneering humour, sidling rather ungainly away and disappearing round the corner of the trench. ‘We all have a difficult job to do and we must do it with courage and determination,’ continued the plummy voice. ‘When the signal is given you will go over the top and keep a line formation. Do not start running. There should be little opposition. We are destroying the Bosche positions with our overwhelming firepower. We will show them what the British soldier is made of.’

  ‘Will tha be joining us today then?’ asked a mud spattered Salford soldier with a scar along his cheek and part of his ear missing. ‘Sir,’ he added after a momentary but meaningful pause. ‘Just by way of a change, like.’

  ‘Don’t be so impertinent to a senior officer,’ the Major barked. ‘I am needed at HQ for making important decisions.’

  ‘Sorry… sir’ the Salford lad responded. ‘Just thought as how you might have been fancying a run out with the lads to enjoy a bit of this nice weather.’

  A bright, boiled beetroot red started to rise above the Major’s cape as he angrily sought for some appropriately scathing words. As he lifted his hand to point an accusing finger at the soldier there was a loud explosion just a few yards to the rear of the trench where he was standing. A huge black mass of mud rose into the air and covered the men in stinking slime. The Major’s gold braided authority was buried by wet earth and mud and only his deathly white face could be seen peering under the dripping peak of his hat. He was a man whose bullying demeanour hid a deep, abiding fear of the horror and reality of war. The Salford soldiers watched, mesmerized, as the spluttering, humiliated officer looked round with fearful staring eyes then turned quickly and ran as fast as his shaking legs and the clinging mud would allow back down the communications trench. Within minutes he was on his horse and galloping towards the safe haven of Battalion Headquarters.

  ‘Nice of him to lay on a bit of entertainment, like,’ observed one soldier, shaking the mud off his oilskin.

  ‘Aye. First time in three years that he’s been that close to any action,’ said another.

  Liam spotted Big Charlie coming slowly round the corner of the trench, checking carefully to see if the coast was clear. He knew immediately, from the smile on his large friend’s face, what had happened.

  ‘Well, you’ve made a bloody mess of us all, but we’ll let you off this time,’ he said, reaching up and cuffing Big Charlie under the chin.

  ***

  By the time that the signal went for the support troops to go over, the torrential rain running down the wall of the trench had washed the earth from around the boot and Edward could now see the sock covering the leg that it contained. For a time, he had watched the first attack going in and had become increasingly depressed. The men from Manchester, who had done all that they had been asked, were mown down by the German machine gunners. Once again, the optimism of the commanding officers had been misplaced. The German trenches were well established and their soldiers simply hid in their underground bunkers until the actual attack started. When it did they emerged to man their machine gun posts and the British soldiers were treated to the usual destructive response. Were the decision makers unable to see this or was it that they placed such a low value on the lives of the rank and file soldiers that they were of little consequence in their blind pursuit of small successes? Edward knew that this was not for him to answer or change. He was trapped in this war machine and all he could do was to hope desperately that it would soon be over.

  The possibility of being killed was something that they tried not to think about and rarely discussed. Most of them now took the approach that, with a bit of luck, it might only be an injury and, if you were really fortunate, it might be a Blighty – an injury that earned you a discharge and a return to England.

  He sat back into his flunk hole with the tension rising in his body. The constricting feeling that always came into his throat and chest had started. His heart was pounding and he tried to focus his mind on what they should do. He wasn’t leading the section this time, as 2nd Lieutenant Frank Williams had been assigned to join them, and Edward focused on listening to the explanation that was being given about the new tactics that the Germans had been employing. Williams was telling them that they might encounter break-out groups of highly trained and heavily armed troops who would try and circle round the back of them and mount an attack from the rear.

  They were fearless and ruthless, he told them, and they could create chaos by breaking up the pattern of the attack. Liam observed that that should blow the minds of some of our officers who were still trying to work out how to cope with the previous tactics. Edward marvelled at his friend’s ability to produce a quip in a situation when his own communicative abilities seemed to be restricted to grunts and nods.

  A soldier emerged from the dugout carrying the rum allocation. They drank it back quickly and enjoyed its comforting warmth as it slipped into their stomachs. It did seem to help. Or was it just part of the routine that they went through? Liam always wiped his boots on the back of his trousers and then crossed himself before they went into action. Edward checked his pockets and said the names of each of his children and then his wife before saying his little prayer. Big Charlie polished and re-polished the barrel of his Lee Enfield three times with an oily cloth that he carried in his pocket. Frank Williams always took a wallet out of his left side breast pocket, removed a carefully folded piece of paper, and read its contents slowly to himself, before kissing it and replacing it with careful precision. He had told Edward once that it was a poem that his wife had written.

  None of them thought that the others’ routines were strange. They had to do them.

  They were their talismans.

  They gave them luck.

  ‘Please God, keep us safe in thy …’

  The shrill whistle blast sounded above the battle noise and the trench erupted into a frenzy of action. Edward dragged himself up the ladder and he was out into no-man’s land, bayonet fixed and head bowed. Smoke from the high explosive barrage was curling around the stubby trees and dipping into the shell craters. It provided a limited degree of cover as they headed for the protection of the trees and the low shrubbery. When Edward looked up to get a view of where they were heading, he was almost blinded by the driving rain. He dropped his head again to get the protection of the rim of his helmet and fixed his eyes on the boots of Frank Williams stepping confidently in front of him. The claggy mud stuck to his boots and made running difficult. Rain was forcing itself up his wrists and down his neck and, defying logic, up inside his helmet. They stepped carefully round the slippery edges of the great hollows in the ground fearful of slipping into the thick, clinging, deep mud at the bottom.

  He was getting hot inside his oilskin cape and his breathing was becoming more laboured as he struggled to drive his increasingly heavy boots through the clay, He could hear
the thudding boots and the rasping breath of his friends as they strove to reach the deeper cover of the trees. Machine gun fire had started up from a position near the perimeter wall of the farmhouse. Hopefully, the weather conditions would hinder them.

  The breathing at the side of him seemed to be getting heavier and the pained wheezing told him that Big Charlie was suffering. He glanced under the side of his helmet and was surprised to see the bottom of two grey trousered legs plodding wearily along at the side of him. His shout, as he realized that this was not his large friend, but a dirty, mud-spattered, very wet and unhappy German, attracted the attention of the others.

  Liam stopped, his hanging jaw betraying his total surprise, and grabbed hold of the panting German. ‘What the…’ he exclaimed. ‘You’re not one of those bloody shock troopers are you?’ he shouted as he suddenly perceived the possible explanation for the man’s presence.

  The soldier stopped and, bending almost double, took a few moments to regain his breath. ‘Nein. Not shock’ he finally managed to get out.

  ‘Well you certainly gave me a bloody surprise’ Liam gasped.

  The German’s drawn face was grey and his pink-rimmed eyes showed pain and fear. His fair hair was plastered to his bare head by the rain and his unprotected uniform was soaked and the water dripped off the edge of his jacket. Liam took his hands off him and his voice calmed as the others gathered round. ‘Look you daft sod. We’re British. What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be over there with them.’

  ‘Nein. Here good.’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ Frank Williams joined in, speaking loudly to make himself understood. ‘You German, we British. We attack German line. You not with us. You with them.’ He waved dramatically to emphasise the point.

  ‘Nein. I stay here.’

  Edward, impressed by the man’s obvious understanding of the English language, offered a different approach. ‘Are you ok mate? You don’t look too good. Do you feel ill?’

  ‘Ya. No food three days. We are wet und very cold.’

  ‘So are you lost?’ Edward enquired. ‘Where is your unit?’

  ‘Not lost. I with you. I am prisoner.’

  ‘You know, I must be going a bit bloody barmy,’ Liam rejoined. ‘You suddenly appear out of nowhere and say you’re a prisoner. Where have you come from? Have you escaped from the camp?’

  ‘Nein. I am your prisoner now.’ The German was now shivering violently and Liam put his arm round him. ‘Look mate. You seem to have cocked things up a bit. You can’t come with us. We’re going this way to attack the German line. We don’t want to but that’s our orders.’

  ‘War is bad,’ the quaking man replied. ‘Ich habe eine Frau und junge Kinder. Viele gute Männer sind gestorben.’

  The Salford lads looked at each other, puzzled by the explanation and at a loss to suggest a solution to this deepening dilemma.

  ‘He said that he’s got a wife and young kids and something about good men. I think he’s had enough.’

  They looked round in amazement at Big Charlie, the source of the explanation, who now stood there looking rather sheepish as if he had been caught out playing with dolls.

  ‘How the bloody hell do you know that?’ challenged the astonished Liam.

  ‘It’s our Dot’s Uncle Arthur. He works for the German butchers on Trafford Road. I go in and hump for him at weekends, now he’s getting a bit older like.’

  Frank Williams, realizing that decisive action needed to be taken, took the German’s rifle and threw it into a mud filled hole where it quickly disappeared. He pointed to the sickly man and then at a sheltering clump of trees with a low wall behind. ‘You. Stay there. We come back for you. Take you to camp for food and doctor.’

  ‘Danke. I wait.’

  The British soldiers fished around in their pockets and produced a bar of chocolate, some dry biscuits and a couple of cigarettes which they handed over to the grateful German.

  ‘Bloody rum do this is,’ observed Liam. ‘It would be handy if the rest of those shockers were starving.’

  The Salford soldiers saw the drenched man settled and continued on their mission. As they emerged on the far side of the trees, with a view of the badly damaged farm buildings, the machine gun fire restarted. To their left they could see various companies of British soldiers tracking their way carefully across the heavily shelled fields. The landscape was littered with the bodies of the dead and wounded and smoke was billowing defiantly up into the heavy grey sky from a point just beyond the buildings where a dump had been hit. The still smouldering tops of trees bore witness to the recent shelling from the British artillery.

  The German defensive positions were clearly well embedded and there was no evidence of any British troops having established positions within a hundred and fifty yards of the German lines although the scattering of bodies suggested that some had tried. Edward could see that a unit of the Manchesters was gradually advancing up the right flank and Frank Williams decided to support them. They moved quickly and made good ground across open fields. The British artillery battery had now lifted to a point beyond the farm where the German support trenches had been plotted by the Allied aircraft. The heavy rain hindered the German marksmen but it also inhibited the progress of the British soldiers. They picked their way carefully through the mud, trying desperately to avoid a potentially fatal fall into the deep mud of the craters.

  They dragged their feet through the heavy, clinging clay, forced into single file by the restricted thread of firm ground, and slithered down slopes of flowing water. Machine gun fire ripped into the ground around them and splintered the wood of the sparse trees. Liam yelped as a bullet pinged loudly off his helmet and lowered his head even further. One of the men shouted as he felt a sharp stinging at the top of his leg and looked down to see a neat hole cut through his oilskin cape. Frank Williams assigned one of the men to assist him to fix a pad over the wound and then to make their way back to their own lines.

  The forward unit of the Manchesters had stopped and were gathered in a group when the Salford men approached them. Their soldiers were standing round some casualties being treated on the floor. One of them was clearly beyond treatment. Blood was still flowing from the wound in his chest and diffusing into the rain that was washing over him. A red stream was running down the slope at the side of him.

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ Edward heard Big Charlie groan behind him, ‘That’s our Ada’s lad. He’s only seventeen.’

  ‘Poor thing. She’ll be demented when she hears about this,’ Edward said. ‘Her husband’s over here isn’t he? You’ll have to get your Dot to go round and see her.’

  ‘I can’t do that when she’s not even speaking to me. She hasn’t sent me a letter back, so that’s it.’

  ‘Well, just write to her and tell her about this. She’ll be upset if she hears from somebody else,’ Edward suggested.

  Frank Williams was in discussion with the Captain of the Manchesters who was explaining that his battalion had suffered heavy losses that morning. He said that there was a well embedded machine gun position in the trench at the front of the farm and that there was a sap trench with an observation post running directly from the main trench. It was from there that they were feeding back the movements of the British troops and it was almost impossible to make progress without being seen.

  He told Williams to take his unit to try to take out the sap and he would, at the same time, attack the MG position with the Manchesters. They discussed a few more points then rejoined their respective units. The rain had eased by the time that they set off but the ground was still a quagmire. They made slow but steady progress enjoying the cover for a while of some low lying hillocks. The gun fire seemed to be concentrated across to the North for the moment and the German artillery was intermittently firing towards the Allied lines half a mile to the West.

  They were within fifty yards of the sap trench when the shattering explosions flung them to the ground. As they painfully picked themselves up from
the muddy earth they looked around for the cause and to check for any casualties. The cause soon became clear. The Germans had obviously seen them and were putting mortar shells over from the sap. Another came over from the main trench but fell short. They found two of the recent recruits from England lying in a crater, unable to crawl up its slippery sides. Another shell came from the sap and exploded with terrifying ferocity in a nearby shell hole. The tons of mud that roared up into the air cushioned the blast but covered the British soldiers in its filthy slime. Williams shouted at the men to keep low and help to get the two injured men out of the crater.

  He took four men and the Lewis gunners with him and traversed in a wide arc towards the head of the sap trench. After various attempts to rescue the men, which failed because of the depth of the hole, Liam took off his belt and fastened it round his ankle and Big Charlie’s wrist. Then, with two men anchoring Big Charlie’s legs, Liam was lowered gently into the hole where he reached down and pulled the men up the muddy wall. One had a broken arm and the other slight concussion.

  As they strapped the man’s arm, Frank Williams returned, his face grim and taut. He had got near enough to lob a couple of grenades at the observation post but the mortars in both German trenches were peppering the area so heavily that further progress was impossible. There were no other British units in the area. They had all been driven back by the fierce, and seemingly unbreachable, German defences. The Captain of the Manchesters had already signalled that he had failed and was heading back. Williams told them that their present position was untenable and they had no alternative but to try to get back to their lines safely.