by Thomas Wood
We trusted him and, knowing exactly what had gone through his mind as he battled with himself, had made me trust him even more. It was refreshing to know that he had identified his mistakes, but not only that, he was now accepting of the potential punishment that he might face.
I wondered if he had conjured up enough courage to send a similar letter to Captain Arnold, detailing everything that had happened and admitting his faults. But, then again, it wouldn’t have surprised me if I was to discover that Captain Arnold had completely forgotten the episode altogether by now. He almost certainly would have forgotten Privates Dornan and Peterson.
I had remembered their names being mentioned briefly when I had first joined the team, but I felt like I had got to know them far better since they had been killed, than I would ever have been able to when they were alive.
McKay had sent me many other letters, detailing some of his conversations with the men who have since been and gone, and on more than one occasion I felt quite emotional and affected by the way in which he spoke of them. I wondered if he would have similarly kind words to say about me if I was to die before he did.
It had been relatively easy for me to stay in touch with McKay, from the confines of a hospital bed, and I was glad that we had done so. More than anything, it was a chance for me to take my mind away from the monotony of hospital life, the regimented lifestyle of meals and exercise times that were far more infuriating than the rigmaroles of military life.
My wounds had been serious enough to send me back to Britain, where the two puncture wounds in my thigh were treated properly, as far away from the frontline as possible and the hole in my hand stitched up nicely.
Over the weeks that I was restricted to lying in that hospital bed, it had given me plenty of time to think and write to McKay. We had grown closer in the month or so that we had spent apart than we had done in the months living in close contact with one another. It got to the point where we were missing each other’s company.
The physical wounds that I had healed up better than I expected them to, but more than that, my mind was feeling refreshed, I was feeling ready to go back.
The echoes and voices of Bob Sargent, that I had heard reverberate around my mind, were gone, so too were the incapacitating headaches and the unquenchable desires to take a sip from my hip flask.
It was that last one that I was relishing in more than anything else. It felt like I was a free man, as if the chains had been released and I was able to break free from the pain and trauma that the paraffin was causing me.
I was excited to go back, to be able to see how much of a better soldier I could be without the influence of the alcohol surging around my body.
If only Bob could see me now.
I had managed to shake off the necessity of the paraffin, after many sleepless nights and many more headache-filled mornings, but the feeling of something missing burned a hole in my top pocket, more than it had done before.
The absence of the hip flask was still troubling me, as I still felt like I had not really achieved anything without it.
The hip flask itself had seen me through many different episodes, where most other men had ended up dead and then, the one time that I did not have it on my person, I ended up almost bleeding to death in a hospital somewhere in France.
I still had not heard from the others about how they had managed to get me away. All of their letters detailing the matters had been subjected to the most stringent of censors.
In fact, I did not know if we had lost anyone on our last journey, as I had simply not heard from any of them. The last I had seen of Earnshaw was blood gushing from his leg like a stream, as we left him propped up behind some debris in No Man’s Land. That had been the last that I had seen or heard of him.
The only reason why had I managed to receive and send messages to McKay was because I knew where he was.
Shortly after being released from the hospital, recovering from his own wounds sustained as a result of my neglect, McKay was arrested by the military police. For the last two weeks, he had been in a cell somewhere near Albert, which was where I could only assume that everyone else was.
I reasoned that the motivations for locking McKay up were as a result of the deal that Captain Arnold had rather foolishly agreed to, before our last outing together.
He had promised his superior officers that McKay would be dead before the sun came up, which was, fortunately for McKay, not the case. Therefore, I supposed that the normal protocol must now apply, and that McKay was being held in a cell as he waited for the date of his court martial to be agreed upon.
I was hoping that it was proving difficult to set a date, when the rest of the team were being routinely sent out on operation after operation. Maybe that would mean that McKay would stay locked up forever.
It was along this train of thought that I wondered what would happen if all the witnesses of that night were killed, before it was brought before the courts. It wasn’t entirely impossible. Maybe that was his only way out alive.
I did the button up on my top pocket where I had just placed McKay’s letter, a worthy replacement, I thought, for the hip flask that had caused me, and so many others, so many issues.
I gave it a couple of taps for no real reason, as I started to step down onto the gangplank. I had enjoyed my time back in Britain, it had helped straighten myself out in more than one regard, but I was an absent sergeant, to a group of men who needed me desperately, so I was looking forward to getting back to them.
The hustle and bustle in the port was absolutely tremendous, and I could not help but smile to myself as I was met by a sea of khaki uniforms and burly shouts.
It feels good to be back.
I rebuked myself almost instantly for feeling that way but, in truth, I had started to forget the horrors of war and replaced them in my mind with happy memories, of the laughs that I had shared with the rest of the team and how I had considered each one of them like a brother to me.
It was not the war that I had missed, but the men in that war that my heart was pining for.
Even though I was still many miles away from a reunion with those men, it at least felt good to be surrounded by men dressed in a similar fashion, each one of them knowing what might be expected of them in the coming weeks and months.
The boys who stepped off the ship with me were, in the main, wounded soldiers who had recovered and were now eager to get back to the frontline. There was, however, a large proportion of newly-trained, untested soldiers, some of whom barely looked a day over the age of twelve.
Each of them stepped off the ship smiling and joking with their friends, masking the true fear and desperation that lurked beneath the surface. None of them wanted to be here, every single one of them would say that this was what they had wanted, but all of them had joined up because he knew of someone else signing up, and he wouldn’t go without them.
The smiles and cheery faces that were masking their true terror was swiftly snatched from them, as Sergeants and Corporals all around, erupted like an artillery bombardment, yanking them into line and order.
I couldn’t help but pity the boys that were subjected to their wrath.
Life here was going to be very different to the one that they had experienced back in Britain.
Life in Britain had seemed to have carried on as normal, as normal as you can when millions of men are fighting just a few hundred miles away.
It was a nation that was, however, closer to us boys in France than we had first thought. Back in the closing stages of the year before, the German navy had bombed some coastal towns in the north and everyone was pulling their weight behind the war effort, men and women, young and old.
In recent months the Germans even had the audacity to fly over in their Zeppelins to drop bombs on innocent civilians, which only served in uniting everyone together, as a whole, to get behind the lads in khaki.
Although at war, there was a real sense of unity and harmony between everyone that I sp
oke to back in Britain.
The rosy-like hue that tinted my short break back in Britain was furthered by the brief time that I had to spend with my family.
Not one of them had been notified in any way that I was injured, never mind the fact that I was in Britain, and I cursed the postal service for losing so many of my correspondences. I knew that I could not kid them however, all of them knew that I was lying through my teeth. It was good to see them, nonetheless.
My mother, father and sister were all still their usual selves, trying to plod along in their lives and make the most of what they had been given. The street that I had grown up on in Southampton was more or less exactly how I had left it, but without the boys kicking things down the street or chasing each other up it.
As it turned out, three families had already been notified that their boys would not be coming home. Mother had become the official family lookout for the telegraph boy, who would bring news of my own demise.
“Name?”
“Andrew Ellis. Sergeant. 4945821.”
I replied curtly but politely to the corporal in charge of a long list of names.
Nice work if you can get it.
“Date of birth?”
“Twelfth June 1896.”
The corporal managed to locate my name, alongside the thousands of others that must have been there, before guiding me through the various queues and corridors to get me to where I needed to be.
But there was one thing that was bugging me the whole time that he was talking.
I had somehow missed my nineteenth birthday.
Happy Birthday to you.
3
My journey back toward Albert was an uneventful one, full of endless military checks broken up by a series of dozing. For some reason, since I had been in the hospital, I had found it almost impossible to go through a full day without getting my head down for a short period. It was one of the things that I had trained my body to become accustomed to, a custom that I did not think would be able to continue once I met up with everyone once again.
I had spent much of the time thinking of my family yet again and what I might put in a letter to my sister, once I got around to it. For some reason, the draw of writing to her, rather than my parents, was more appealing, as if it was some sort of penance over the fact that I had almost forgotten her for so long.
She was a kind-hearted soul, my sister, but one that did not seem to want for much in her life. She was more than happy to simply plod along and marry the first man who paid her any attention. It was not that she had not received any attention that was the cause for her current marital status, but the fact that she was only just approaching seventeen and still some way off being considered an eligible woman.
Over the years we had shared in one another’s annoyances with our parents, spending hours upon hours wandering around the docks, taking in the sights and bemoaning the latest episode of the horrors of childhood.
I had been prepared for many more years of walks such as those, however, the sense of duty, the pull of the fight had become too strong for me and I had signed up within a few hours of me making my decision.
It was the first time in a long time that I had given some consideration to my life before the army, albeit the few days before I joined up.
There was a growing tension in the air, the talk of war filling every public house and butcher’s shop throughout the whole town.
“It will be a war like no other,” some had muttered, which had been met with a general agreement.
“You won’t see my young Walter anywhere near one of them recruiting shops, you mark my words,” muttered one woman as I worked, blissfully unaware of the fact that Walter had already accepted the King’s shilling. He was one of the three who had already been killed on my street.
I did not feel like I had had my youth snatched from me, rather it was an acceleration towards my adulthood, my rite of passage a few months before anyone else. Even so, I still missed those walks with my sister.
I walked alone now, through the rubble and debris that was the town of Albert. I had been dropped off half a mile or so behind the lines, and so had a walk of around two or so miles further back, before I got to Albert. The army’s sense of direction had always confused me somewhat.
As I approached the village, I could make out the tall, imposing and impressive outline of the basilica, as it glistened gently in front of the sun that set my eyes streaming.
The walls that had once housed the ardent and enthusiastic prayers of the faithful still lay in ruins around the base of the church, the hallways and stairways down towards the crypt now out in the open air.
A couple of children scurried up and down the ramps that had been created in the rubble, each child daring to reach higher up than the last. I supposed they would be at it until sundown, as they still had quite a number of feet to go before they got to the top.
It was the figure that defiantly stood stretching out over the top of the basilica that, as always, stole my gaze. The figurine of the Madonna, clutching tightly to her child, continued to lean over to one side, as if it was defying the principle of gravity itself.
But, as I moved closer to it, I realised that it had been reinforced since I had last seen it, a mixture of poles and ropes ensuring that it wasn’t to topple on one of the children’s heads.
That’s a shame. I wanted it to come down, sharpish.
It hadn’t just been the lone Tommy who had told me the superstition about how the war would continue until it fell, but it seemed everyone in the nearby vicinity seemed convinced of it as fact. There had apparently even been some protests when the workmen had secured the statue to the top, with many bemoaning the fact that the war was now doomed to continue forever.
I chuckled softly, as I took a great comfort that I was not the only man on the Western Front who had taken an unhealthy interest in superstition and talismans.
Maybe it wasn’t the paraffin after all.
I stood and took in the scene of the ruined basilica for a few more minutes, before I decided that I would soon have to tear myself away from it and find my destination.
“Oi! What you lookin’ at?”
For a moment, the noise did not sound human, but within a flash, I slowly deciphered the tones to realise that it was a voice, a man’s voice and, he was speaking English.
I turned, only to be met by the largest grin that I think I had ever seen in my life before. His face was clean and plump, as if he had been gorging himself on the finest foods in recent weeks, which I knew can’t have been the case.
“Harry!” I exclaimed excitedly, genuinely delighted to see the man that stood before me. “I thought you were going to be dead!”
“So did I,” chirped back Earnshaw, “Doctor’s soon saw me right though.”
“Last time I saw you, you looked like you were going to be at the pearly gates by the afternoon. Hit in the leg, weren’t you?”
“Yeah,” he replied, quite sheepishly, “turns out it wasn’t quite as serious as it looked. Don’t tell the others though, will you?”
“You mean, they haven’t figured it out?”
“Not yet.”
I chuckled and slapped him on the shoulder.
“Here to walk me home then? If you can manage it, of course.”
“Oh, I’m really glad you’re back.”
We laughed and joked for the five-minute walk back towards our billet, in which time Earnshaw filled me in on all the comings and goings of recent weeks, so that I wasn’t met with a huge surprise the minute that I walked through the door.
Somehow, no one had been killed since I had been gone. But, then again, it seemed like the whole team would be in the doghouse until the court martial, as they hadn’t really done anything apart from standard patrols for the last fortnight.
“We’re hoping something will change soon,” surmised Earnshaw, as we slid through the door.
“I’m sure it will,” I replied as I realised how much I had missed t
he non-descript walls and frankly horrific odour of sweating men, that seemed to leak out of every crevice in the entire building.
“Look who I found, wandering the streets like a lost little cat,” announced Earnshaw as I stepped into the room.
A mish mash of voices suddenly sparked up, to accompany the turning heads, as sounds of jubilation and cheeriness were interspersed with “Ellis!” and “Andrew!”
I immediately began to feel even better than I had done before, to the point where I became convinced that I could have recovered quicker in two weeks had I done it here in this room, as opposed to some overpacked ward back in Britain.
I shook hands and slapped backs for what felt like a good hour, as each one of them took it in turns to reintroduce their happy little faces to me once again.
“You two decided to stick around then?” I asked as Sergeant Lawrence appeared before me, his Canadian compatriot, Chester, not too far behind him.
“We figured you chumps would need us a lot more than anyone else on this side of the wire.”
“Well, by my calculations,” I retorted as I gripped Chester’s hand, “more of us ended up in hospitals with you two around than any other time before.”
“Yeah, true,” Chester said, looking deep into my eyes, “but did anyone die?”
I looked around the room, as if searching for the answer, “No, I suppose that you’re right. I’ll put up with you two if you can keep on delivering on that one.”
“We have been while you’ve been putting your feet up.”
Lawrence’s dry sense of humour was something that I had forgotten, but immediately knew that I would need to up my game if I was to continue competing with him. But it wasn’t just me that he was after.
“You weren’t the only one who fancied a little lie down, Sergeant Ellis. Young Earnshaw over here tripped over a twig and spent three weeks in hospital.”
Earnshaw, who was standing beside a mirror, glancing at himself sideways, immediately burned a furious red colour, one that had been so permanently etched upon his skin in recent weeks that it seemed like his face had changed dramatically.
