It was almost noon on the day in late January 1915 and the snowy, hard terrain wasn’t very different from what it had been the previous day—apart from some bloodstains that covered portions of it and begrimed many carcasses of horses left dead on the ground. There had been a skirmish during the night when the Germans had tried to break through French defenses, but they had been stopped before advancing too far, as it had happened time and time again.
Well hidden in my hole, I, Claude Souillè, being a soldier of only nineteen, wore the so-called capote modèle simplifié whose color was simply known as gris bleu anglais, with the buttons on the right; and the characteristic pantalon-culotte of a common French infantryman of that period. There was a light képi on my head that allowed only a few short, dark curls to fall around my face. My rifle, being a reliable though heavy 8mm fusil repetition Level 1886 M93, was aiming apparently at nothing across the barren terrain. My hazel eyes kept watch for any movement in the distance, while the burden of the heavy equipment I had on—made up of a military knapsack, a huge bouthéon and my outil individuel—made me sink much lower than I normally would have within the hole, in order to keep my body safe. Actually, in 1914, uniforms, equipment, and tactics for the average soldiers had changed very little since the Franco-Prussian War of more than forty years before. Most of the troops had only recently put away their previous greatcoats and red trousers—as wearing such colorful trousers made men perfect targets on battlefields where machine-guns and artillery ruled, and those innovations in uniforms had only begun by the winter of 1914. In a way clothing had been poorly improved, and soldiers still didn’t wear helmets yet. Such a useful safeguard was still to come for the infantrymen courageously fighting day by day across those battlefields where death could suddenly come from any direction.
My standard military unit was the 34th Infantry Regiment (R.I.), which consisted of seventy officers along with three-thousand-four-hundred other ranks and was organized into three battalions. The young French soldier thought that, likely, their politicians hadn’t ever witnessed any battles like these, because they hadn’t done anything to try and stop them. Or maybe such terrible losses didn’t have a particularly profound effect on their rulers’ minds or on the Military’s thinking either. Thousands of men like me, ill-equipped and poorly led, were marched off into some of the costliest battles France had ever fought. The Battle of the Frontiers and the fighting in 1914 alone cost their army more than three-hundred-thousand casualties.
It had been said many times that the French Army of 1914 was prepared for war: whether it was prepared for a conflict like the Great War was another matter. France had a general conscription at the outbreak of war, with men being called-up to join the army at eighteen and, on average, completing a four-year term of service. After being discharged from the regular forces, they were immediately placed on the reserve until they were roughly thirty-three years of age, and then they joined the territorials, often staying in until they were in their late forties. It meant that the average Frenchman was committed to military service, in one way or another, for most of his adult life. This was requested under common circumstances, but this war was not one of those, certainly.
I thought that, after that continuous standoff and all the casualties involved in the cruel fighting, both High Commands should have properly reviewed their offensive capabilities and decided upon what was to be their final, winning strategy. But things hadn’t gone that way nor were they going to make strides towards a quick end in the near future, according to what soldiers—like me—saw in front of themselves every day.
On the other hand, many older officers had been overheard during meals saying that to finally beat them a sort of new Great Offensive would properly be launched within a few months against the British and French sectors. This was because the last infiltration attempts tried by the Germans using small, maneuverable units especially designed not to incur into time-consuming battles at some strong-points—had completely failed so far, therefore more aggressive measures were sure to be used, sooner or later. Truth be told, I had ended up by feeling very dejected over the course of the last two nights in the trenches as the others had talked about what they had heard. It was especially frustrating to discover that the resistance I and my fellows put up every single day hadn’t proved to be helpful or decisive at all. Instead it would just force our enemies to deploy a much more aggressive and bloody attack against our positions soon.
Some of my fellow soldiers said they had already experienced such offensives, being in the rear, and they well-remembered what the few surviving ones among the advancing troops had told them: while the sheer scale of the assault was staggering, the fear most had was to be completely overrun, this way remaining entirely alone within a zone that was already held by the enemy, with predictable consequences. Of course, there was also a worse alternative, which was being shot—be it struck in the head or in the chest- and immediately falling to the ground during the first moments of the attack itself. That was a way to not worry anymore about the terrifying effects of such an offensive—but the only problem was that you were already dead at that moment, so you didn’t need to worry about anything else at all, ever again.
Only a few small arms had fired at the French positions during the first part of that day. Then, all of a sudden about four o'clock, the French were attacked with a massive artillery barrage. The shells were coming in, hitting the trees and exploding, so the defending soldiers—who were spread across that small portion of the front—were exposed to insidious tree burst shrapnel uninterruptedly raining down on them.
After some time, before the French artillery started to retaliate against the Germans, sadly I was ordered to go out and cut apart some large branches that had been knocked down during the shelling. It was already getting dark, or perhaps it was just the smoke that persistently covered the entire area that concealed the feeble sun in the sky. The logs were to be placed over the foxholes of my fellow infantrymen deployed nearby to protect from further shell bursts. After leaving my main weapon behind and going about 100 yards towards the first carcasses of a few emaciated horses killed during the previous battle, I got about four logs cut when I was almost shot through the face by a German rifleman in the distance, unexpectedly.
‘Damn!’ angrily I told myself and immediately hit the ground, trying to stay away from any further danger. After immediately turning back to my hidden position, I fell flat on my face in about fifteen inches of snow. My only thought was, “When will it be finally over?” But my sad conclusion was, “Maybe never . . .”
As another long bombing started again, everyone inside their strange, long trenches that stretched past my current position stayed in hiding—protecting their belongings and their guns. A powerful hit was heard very near to my hole, but it seemed not to have killed or wounded any of my fellow soldiers, as no cries or moans came from them. “Just a Weary Willie . . .,” I told myself. That was a term our British allies commonly used for a German shell passing safely, albeit rather slowly, overhead. “Luckily no one got hurt . . .” was what I whispered—or so I thought anyway.
But things proved to be very different. And unexpected, too. . . .
I really hated such Whizz-Bangs, which were high-velocity German shells—named for the noise of the fast flight and the subsequent explosion. I was highly-motivated to remain in hiding for the time being and so I started singing in my mind a familiar song from that period. As a matter of fact, I had heard the British troops repeating it for days, while they were together defending the area during the previous weeks. “I don't want to go in the trenches no more, where the whizz-bangs and shrapnel they whistle and roar . . .” and the rest of the popular music resounded in my head over and over again for some time.
While paying attention to what was going around my position, the dense mist was very heavy and visibility only about twenty yards, so I thought about some things I already well knew: our High Command knew that the enemies wanted to capture the Cre
ute terrain (also called La Caverne du Dragon, or Drachenhöhle, as the Germans had named it), that was the last remaining French stronghold in the area. So we had to be ready anytime, whatever the cost, as any minute could be the Zero-hour when a bloody attack would commence.
Even though I was unable to know the whole story at present, from early 1915 onwards, German troops had invaded an underground quarry that dated back to the 16th century. During WWI, they had placed heavy weapons at each of the seven entrances, ready to breathe fire like a dragon. Soon, the caverns were said to have electricity, dormitories and even a cemetery. The walls of the chambers in there were also said to be adorned with drawings and messages that were wartime propaganda. Strange to say, but both the French and the Germans were going to live and fight some forty-nine feet below the ground in the near future, starting in 1917. That was what war on that front was going to be like in a matter of a few years: moving in close quarters and under very harsh conditions. But I couldn’t imagine it at that moment, certainly, and really it didn’t matter anyway.
There were some single insidious shots more, over my light képi, and just after the noisy hit I had heard before—as soon as the smoke caused by the shells began to dissipate and I expected that the orders to attack the enemies could come very soon—my ears listened again for any voices, but I didn’t hear the Germans speaking. The chilly part of me that didn’t want to remain in here any longer was planning to slowly and quietly turn around and walk back safely to the low terraced lines of the French trenches, when something requiring my attention appeared, and I thought I had seen some movements within that unnatural mist. Then my eyes saw a fellow ally—he was British given his uniform, even though he didn’t presently wear the characteristic stiffened peak cap that all the British soldiers usually wore. He walked with a very pale look on his face, was moving at a very slow pace, and seemed to be lost.
The fair-haired tall man had the appearance of somebody that truly lacked a freewill. Maybe the last hit had wounded him in some way or he was just confused and unable to reason clearly. . . . But there was something else that looked very strange about him, at least according to my thoughts: he seemed to be incapable of speech, but tended to make moaning and some very unusual guttural sounds, which was increasingly strange. But another detail made everything about that ally stranger and stranger: his very pale skin displayed visible signs of desiccation, decay and emaciation—and the expressionless, empty face was really frightening me now.
Then the British soldier started sniffing the air around him and, as soon as another French infantryman of the 34th appeared nearby, emerging from the same smoke that was slowly dissipating, that one immediately turned to him and started running after the soldier in an unexpected way. It didn’t take him too long to catch up and as he came nearer he grabbed him—yes, it was exactly what he did—all of a sudden, his mouth moved feverishly toward the French soldier who was caught by surprise and he didn’t react on time. Soon after, the British soldier’s teeth started eating the infantryman’s skin, piercing his body as if that man was the main course of a tasty dinner. Unbelievable, by any means!
Apart from the complete unreality of the scene, the British soldier seemed to display an increased strength relative to normal humans, as if it had been set free due to the removal of normal neurological limits of muscle strength. And he didn’t stop, he kept devouring the fellow French soldier’s body! It was just as if an insatiable and endless desire to consume a living individual had become his only motive for existence!
I thought that I surely had to do something in order to stop all that, as I had to help my fellow infantryman, who was from the same military regiment I was. But what could I try? Then I saw before my own eyes that the cruel scene was still going on, and it was also becoming fiercer and fiercer, as the attacker was removing parts from the arms and the chest of his poor prey. So I made up my mind. Immediately I fired a shot, then another against the madman assaulting the Frenchman, hoping that the Englishman would cease his senseless actions finally. But nothing happened . . . there was no effect! “What the hell . . .? What is going on . . .?” I silently asked himself, while a sort of desperation started growing in my mind.
Why hadn’t two shots been enough to wound the British soldier? I wondered about that, but I didn’t have any explanation. The attacker didn’t seem to have taken any offense at my shooting at him, nor was he in pain. He wasn’t even crying, in spite of me targeting his chest, and that was really unbelievable! What man could not be affected at all by a fusil a répétition hitting him directly in the chest?
And now, what could I do? Where were Le Service de la Santé and its capable pharmacies and infirmaries when you most needed them? Why were there no superior officers around to tell me what exactly to do?
Then, another strange figure appeared nearby, coming out of the same smoke that was now very feeble and started quickly disappearing from the area. It was very easy to spot him and recognize his uniform, as it was German! But he didn’t wear the outfit commonly used by the enemy for a frontal assault, as he looked to be a very dapper artilleryman, wearing riding boots, which were taller and of thicker leather than the common infantryman's jack boot, while his helmet cover didn’t fit particularly well. He also had a three-section leather ammo pouch on his belt, a typical pistolet automatique P 08 dangling in a harmless way from his waist, and he was walking at a very slow pace too.
Because he didn’t stand upright, with straight legs and back, as common men usually did, the German seemed to be affected by a serious restriction in his muscle control, forcing him to move with an awkward shamble. His overall posture wasn’t right, for sure, as he had knees and ankles which were bent at awkward angles, with a prominent lean to one side. His movements were becoming increasingly irregular, as he walked on. I didn’t have any difficulty recognizing that his face and his skin displayed the same strange signs the previous British soldier had, which only made me even more afraid of the whole damn situation that was going on. Maybe some new, strange, and terrible weapon was at work in that place and I was in the middle of that zone of unknown operations! I had already heard of those first tries from the enemy and his own troops, too. I had heard how both sides had recently put into practice the use of gas and other deadly substances on the battlefields—but I had never witnessed such a terrible thing for myself, of course. And I wished I never had with all my heart, of course. . . .
As the British soldier seemed to have completed his bloody meal and left the few remains of the dead body of the unfortunate French soldier on the snowy terrain, the German approached, moving faster than before, just as if his nose had sensed something tasty in the air as well. As soon as he got to the corpse, he started licking the blood that begrimed the cold ground and then tried to satisfy his hunger by eating the few body parts still at his feet. Then, once those monstrous actions were over, he rose to his feet and stared at the other being who was nearby in an inexpressive way, without speaking. From his mouth only a strange moaning and some guttural sounds came out, exactly the same as the British soldier.
The two didn’t attack each other, as if they were of a common alliance, in a way. But they were enemies, in reality, the first one being British and the other one a German! What was happening in there? Maybe they were spies, or traitors. But I immediately dropped that thought, as I had never seen spies eating other combatants nor individuals being hungry enough to devour corpses on the ground, and I didn’t think they could be from somewhere else in the world, after all. . . .
There was a sort of brief, strange silence, while the seemingly empty eyes of the two strange men looked at each other, then something else happened. In fact, it was at that point that another French infantryman reached the same place, his uniform having some bloodstains on it. While he moved along he kept his right hand on his opposite arm, as if it had been hit and was wounded now, and he wanted to protect that part of his body. His approach was immediately noticed by the two pale figures who, almost
in accordance, turned their heads to him and used their noses to savour the blood smell in the air, along with the reddish drops that were falling behind him on the white cover of the battlefield. Then they both moved together against the newcomer and tried to hurriedly reach him in order to accomplish their evil task. What surprised me the most was that the strange pale British soldier seemed to be acting in complete accordance—or at least in silent agreement— with the German artilleryman who was next to him.
The two appeared to be a couple of very unusual individuals, as their weird faces and their overall features didn’t display any signs of intelligence. Everything about them clearly revealed that they weren’t completely right in the head. On the contrary, those two soldiers looked like two madmen, without reasoning, with no ties to this world, at least not any longer. Right then they didn’t even notice each other as both of them kept moving toward the new soldier, that fellow soldier of theirs, in order to attack him. British soldiers and Germans working together? That was really incredible; certainly something unexpected and unexplainable was happening in that place.
Then my attentive though incredulous eyes saw other people advancing at a very cautious pace, wearing huge gas masks: they might have been Germans but I wasn’t sure at all, given their strange outfits. At least they weren’t dressed in any uniform that I was acquainted with.
“What is going on?” being already very frightened, my mind wondered.
Then, suddenly, five, no, six other figures came out of the faint haze and all of them wore wide chestnut-colored protective suits. Immediately I recognized the suits now as the clothing scientists wore to prevent themselves from coming into contact with deadly liquids or contagious diseases. They reached the two pale soldiers who were still attacking the poor French infantrymen. They raised their hands and the heavy though thin metallic machines they had with them sent out a long controllable stream of fire. This flame was projected at an incredibly high rate of speed from those mechanical devices, causing the incineration of those who were their distant targets.
Year's Best Body Horror 2017 Anthology Page 31
