by Pat Kelleher
"I can't," he was saying. "I can't..."
"Turn round the way you came, you fucking coward," the bigger, burly one said.
The soldier took a step forward, towards him.
"I can't!" he screamed, tendons straining in his neck, his face red with effort as he dashed the Military Policeman's face with spittle.
The smaller man casually put his pistol to the man's head and fired. His legs crumpled beneath him and he dropped heavily to the ground, his head lolling at a sickening angle.
"What the fuck are you looking at?" the burly one snarled as Garside tried to edge past. He lowered his eyes to avoid meeting their gaze, but as he did so his eyes fell upon the now lifeless body of the young private.
"Leave 'im, Charlie," the wiry one said. "He's going in the right direction, 'sides he's got a Battalion armband on."
Garside ran on. He rounded several traverses to put distance between himself and the casual brutality he'd just witnessed.
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!"
He skidded desperately to a halt. Small pebbles skittered from under his boots - and off into empty space.
Before him, where the support and front line trenches should have been, where No Man's Land had stretched away toward the German lines, lay nothing now but a huge crater almost half a mile across and thirty or forty yards deep at its centre.
The entire front line of the Harcourt Sector had gone.
CHAPTER FOUR
"Though Your Lads Are Far Away..."
Blood pulsing in his ears, his breathing shallow and rapid within the claustrophobic gas hood, Atkins struggled to stand. About him, the featureless smog of war billowed sluggishly, draping itself around him, as if seeking a way through his respirator. Shapes swirled about him and he saw Flora's face, looking like she had that day outside the factory: threading her way across the street towards him between honking motor cars and horse and carts. Her joyous smile made his heart sing. He had to tell her. How would she react? He didn't know. He wasn't sure he could find the words at all. In the end he didn't have to. As she approached her face fell, but she caught herself and smiled again, although this time it seemed strained and polite.
"I - I thought you were William."
His stomach dropped away and his heart rose to his throat. "No, he said quietly, lowering his head and wringing his army cap in his hands as if in contrition. "I'm sorry."
She clasped his hands in hers gently. "No, I am."
"I've no news of William. He's been officially missing for weeks. Lots of lads have. But I'll keep trying for you. He'll turn up, I'm sure."
Unable to look her in the eye, he found himself looking at the small hands that embraced his, and the engagement ring his brother had bought her. He looked up, tears welling in his eyes to see the same in hers, united in grief.
"Hush, Tom. Walk me home."
As quickly as it materialised the shade dissipated. Unseen in the twilit gloom of poison gas, he could hear the gas hood-smothered cries of others.
"Porgy! Porgy! Where are you?"
He thought he heard an answer from somewhere over to his left but the lethal cloud around him left him completely disorientated. He could be stumbling straight towards the German wire for all he knew. And he wished his world would stop spinning. He leant on his rifle to steady himself but, unable to keep his balance, he keeled over again and the ground loomed up to meet him. He just wanted the great big world to stop turning. With a groan he moved into a sitting position and pushed himself to his feet with the help of his rifle butt.
A deep bass rumble filled the featureless miasma around him and his world lurched, lifted upwards and dropped with such a jarring force that it drove him into the mud up to his knees. An explosion? Not any kind of shell he was familiar with. It wasn't a Five Nine or Whizz-Bang or Jack Johnson, that was for sure. It seemed to come from below the very ground he was standing on. Perhaps a mine had been set off. That must be it. Hundreds of tons of high-explosive going off underground. That'd give Fritz something to worry about.
A bright, diffuse light illuminated the smog from above, penetrating its suffocating gloom and throwing strange, disturbing shadows onto the moving banks of mist. There were cries of alarm from all around, moans of pain; calls for help, for pals, for mothers.
An eddy of wind caught the gas cloud and, for a moment, it thinned. Atkins thought he could make out the shapes of others, before the gas closed in again. He lay back in the mud as far as he could, feeling the jumbled contents of his backpack pressing into his back, and slowly began to pull his right leg from the sucking mud. Men had died getting stuck in this mire. His leg came free with a loud sucking noise. Scrabbling to gain a foothold with his free heel again he levered himself backwards, digging the shoulder butt of his rifle into the ground for extra purchase and slowly drawing his left leg free, almost losing his boot in the process.
Stopping to catch his breath, he noticed the silence. The wailing of the distant bagpipes had ceased. But even more disconcertingly, the guns had stopped. He had grown so used to their incessant roar that their absence now startled him. What the hell was going on?
"Only!"
He turned his body trying to gauge where the sound was coming from.
"Only! Where are you?"
"Over here!"
He could make out things moving in the mist. Three hunched shades with gaunt faces containing empty sockets resolved themselves into solid corporeal soldiers in gas hoods and Battle Order.
"Only!"
It was Porgy, Pot Shot and Lance Sergeant Jessop. Well, it was definitely Pot Shot. There was no mistaking the size of him, or Jessop's stripes.
"You okay, mate?" asked Pot Shot.
"What the hell was that, a mine going up?"
"Dunno, but they might have bloody warned us."
"What the hell's going on?" asked Gutsy joining them. "Why's the firing stopped? D'you think it's a truce?"
"It's bloody eerie, is what it is," said Atkins.
"Hey, maybe it's an armistice, maybe the war is finally over," said Jessop. "I can go home to Maud and little Bertie."
A gentle wind began to worry the edges of the gas cloud. The fog thinned and visibility gradually improved. They saw dazed soldiers picking themselves up off the ground. If that had been a mine and it was British, then they should be pressing home their advantage and taking the Hun trenches while the enemy were still dazed.
"Where's the rest of us?" Atkins asked, looking around.
"Over by that shell hole. Half Pint's trying to calm Ginger down. Lucky, Mercy and Gazette are still out there somewhere. Ketch? Who cares? Sergeant's probably taking the Jerry trenches by himself," said Porgy.
The battle fog was mostly gone, slinking shamefully along the surface of the mud, herded by playful draughts.
"Hoods off!" came a distant shout.
Thankfully, men began removing their steel helmets and pulling off their gas hoods.
"Uh, chaps?" said Pot Shot, staring off into the distance.
"Come on, give a man a hand here," said Atkins putting out an arm. Porgy and Jessop took it and pulled him to his feet.
"Chaps?" said Pot Shot again, more urgently.
Atkins wiped his muddy hands on his thighs. He felt a tap on his shoulder. Porgy was looking past him. "What?" he said in irritation as he rolled up his gas helmet and took a lungful of air. The acrid tang of cordite hit the back of his throat and the slight hint of chlorine hung in the air. He coughed and spat.
Porgy jerked his chin.
He turned and followed their gaze "Blood and sand!" The shell-ravaged vista of No Man's Land was as familiar as it ever was. Atkins turned round. He could see their trenches and the barbed wire. For around a quarter of a mile in every direction there was the pummelled and churned ground of the Somme. But beyond...
It was as if some pocket of Hades had been deposited in the vale of Elysium. Beyond the muddy battlefield of No Man's Land, lush green vegetation sprang up, a green so deep and bright
after untold weeks of drab khaki and grey, chalky mud that it almost hurt the eyes to look upon it. Great curling fronds, taller than a man, waved in the breeze. Where there should have been only blasted hell-torn rolling farmland, now, on either side of them, deep green thickly wooded hills rose up as if cradling them, their peaks marked by glittering becks and scumbles of scree. Atkins was reminded of the hills and mountains of his Pennine home and felt a pang of homesickness. The air around them was no longer chill and damp, but warm and moist. In the distance, along the valley floor, was a forest of sorts and, above them all, arced an achingly blue summer sky.
But of Harcourt Wood and its splintered, shredded trees, there was no sign.
Men, stunned by the same sight, were taking off their gas hoods and shucking off their backpacks and webbing to stand dumbstruck. Some fell to their knees weeping openly with relief. In the distance, the sounds of a hymn, Nearer My God to Thee, rose up from the trenches. Soldiers slowly, cautiously clambered over the parapets, laying down their weapons to stand in the sunlight.
"Lay down your arms, brothers, for we are at peace in the fields of the Lord!"
Groups knelt in prayer amidst the mud, their hands clasped together, heads bowed. Others just sat, exhausted from the constant tension of the front lines or wandered dazed amid the trammelled corpse-ridden fields. Warmed by the sun, steam began to drift gently up, rising like the ghosts of the slain from the desolate earth.
"It's paradise!" said Ginger, his steel helmet held loosely in his hand, a beatific smile adorning his face. He wasn't shaking or jerking, he wasn't stuttering. It seemed as if a load had been lifted from him. Atkins had never known Ginger without his shell-shock.
"Paradise? You mean - "
"We're dead. Yes. Look. The guns have stopped. This isn't the Somme. This isn't France. It's heaven," Ginger sighed. "It's heaven..."
"Valhalla," said Pot Shot, nodding in agreement.
"You what?" said Jessop.
"Valhalla. Norse heaven of Viking warriors."
"Well, that's us, though, ain't it, warriors? That's us," said Lucky.
"Blimey you're a regular fount of knowledge, Pot Shot. I'm surprised you can get your head inside that battle bowler of yours," Gutsy said.
Atkins felt the great weariness that he had been holding at bay descend on him. It was as if the weight of his mortality was slowly crushing him, as if the mere thought of an end had robbed him of the tenacious will to cling on at all costs. Was this it then? If it was over, if it really was over, if he really could just stop and give in -
"There's just one thing bothers me," said Half Pint, scratching his head after a few seconds thought.
"Oh aye, what's that then?" said Jessop. "You found a problem with heaven, have you?"
"Well, there's no way they'd be lettin' Porgy through the pearly gates for a start."
Me, neither, thought Atkins.
It was all very well the chaplains preaching for victory and devoutly citing that the murder of a Hun was a good thing, but they were hollow words if your conscience was pricked by other matters.
Porgy inclined his head, pursing his lips as he nodded. "Man's got a point," he said.
"I'll say," said Gutsy, "All those saintly, virtuous young ladies and Porgy? Might be his idea of heaven, but it'd be their idea of hell."
"Don't blaspheme," said Ginger. "Look at it. How can it be anything else? Where did you ever see such beauty on earth?"
"Where's the Padre? He'd know," said Lucky.
"Well, if this is heaven he ain't going to be too happy about it," said Half Pint.
"Why?"
"He'll be out of a job, won't he?"
Seeing that the gas was now blowing away, Jeffries eagerly pulled the stifling hood from his head as he stood ready to receive his god with expectations of the glory and power due to him. So he was perplexed at his deity's absence and the idyllic sights surrounding them confused him. But beyond that that there was a growing anger. What had gone wrong? He had said the words perfectly, hadn't he? Yes, he must have. He was sure he had. He ran through his preparations in his head. He had been painstaking in their groundwork. It had taken months to put this plan together based on years of meticulous research. There was only one conclusion he could come to; he'd been cheated. At the moment of his greatest triumph, somehow he'd been cheated. He shook his head slowly, uncomprehensive as anger burned deeply within him until he was consumed in a wave of rage and vitriol.
"No!" he roared, throwing his helmet to the ground. "No!"
Sergeant Hobson stormed over to 1 Section. "You lot! Just what the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Nothing, Sar'nt. We're dead," called Porgy.
"You're not bloody well dead until I tell you you're dead!" snapped Hobson. "Now pick your kit up and follow me."
Atkins smirked at Porgy, who shrugged. "Well, it's something to do until Saint Peter shows up and demobs us," he said.
"Don't believe in heaven, anyway," said Pot Shot casually. "Opiate of the masses an' all that."
"Opiate of the masses, that you readin' again, is it?" retorted Gutsy.
"Opiate?" said Jessop thoughtfully. "No, wait lads, he could be onto something. That would explain it. What if ol' Fritzy-boy, is using some sort of experimental opium gas what got through our respirators? This, this could all be a giant illusination. You know like them Chinky opium dens they have in that fancy London?"
Everson felt disconsolate. Since the gas cloud cleared and the astounding change to the landscape had revealed itself he began to feel power dripping away from him. It was all he'd wished for, for months, yet now he was not yet ready to relinquish it so easily. Not until he was sure that it was over, that they were all safe.
"You men!" he called, brandishing his Webley in their direction. "Pick up your weapons!" They ignored him. "Pick up your weapons!"
It was as if, in the absence of an enemy, he'd lost all authority. Isn't that what he wanted all along? To shed the burden? It was the same along the entire front. Men had cast their rifles aside, sat down and were breaking out their iron rations and singing sentimental songs, sharing out the smokes, waiting... waiting for something. Nobody seemed sure what, but whatever it was, it wasn't a subaltern with a pistol.
"It's a higher authority we answer to now, mate," one brazen private told him, jerking his chin towards the distant hills. "If we're dead then the only route march I'm doing is through the pearly gates. Fag?"
Perplexed, Everson shook his head. Seemingly bereft of purpose, he wandered out along the wire entanglements that marked the British Line. Men lay where they had fallen, sobbing and crying in pain. Some were being tended to, some being ferried away on stretchers. If this was heaven, why were there still the wounded and suffering? Would heaven allow men to suffer with their guts hanging out? What kind of god was that?
He caught sight of 1 Section being herded towards him like wayward sheep by Sergeant Hobson, before he went to round up the rest of the scattered platoon. Everson addressed one of the men.
"Jellicoe?"
"Sir?"
"I don't know what the hell is going on here, but the last I heard we were attacking the German positions in Harcourt Wood."
"Wood seems to have gone now, sir," chimed in Hopkiss.
"Thank you, yes, I can see that, Hopkiss, but the point remains. Until we know what we're dealing with here I would prefer --"
An unearthly howl cut through the valley, echoing off the hillsides. As one, the Section raised their rifles, eyes surveying the landscape. Around them men started and turned to listen, uncertainty clouding their faces. Some began gathering their discarded equipment, looking expectantly towards the officer.
"What the bloody hell was that?" said Everson.
"It came from that forest, sir," said Jellicoe.
"Right. Yes," said Everson, feeling a resurgence of purpose and responsibility, "Jessop, stay here with your section, I'll tell Hobson to rally the Platoon and pass on any orders." He turned to address
the other men. "The rest of you men get back to your platoon's trenches and stand to! Until we know what's going on I think we must remain on our guard."
As platoons of men slunk back to the trenches, overhead, Atkins heard a faint, familiar drone. High above he spotted two aeroplanes, each vying for an advantageous position from which to attack. One succeeded in manoeuvring above the other for a split second before it began descending in a slow smoky spiral. Atkins watched it drift down like a leaf until it was lost from sight behind the peaks of the newly risen hills. A high gust of wind had caught the untethered and slowly deflating German kite balloon, carrying it further and further away over the hills, buoyed aloft by swift currents of air.
A spatter of machine gun fire jerked him back to reality, if anything they were experiencing could be said to be reality. Another burst. And another. The field of fire swept across No Man's Land. Tommies fell. Men scurried for cover and dived into shell holes with shouts of alarm and dismay.
"There!" said Gazette, spotting the muzzle flash of the machine gun as it fired off another burst. "It's a Hun sap."
They barely had time to follow Gazette's stare towards a fortified shell-hole before the Maxim fire swept towards them. The Section scrambled for the cover of a shell hole, bullets spitting into the mud at their heels as they ran. As they threw themselves into the mud-filled pit a roar filled the air as the great ironclad bulk of HMLS Ivanhoe reared up out of a dip in front of them, like some great blind creature emerging from the primordial slime. It crashed down heavily, placing its metal carcass between them and the raking German machine gun. Atkins heard the bullets raining against the hide of the motorised beast.
Slowly its great six-pounder gun turned toward the emplacement. There was a brief pause before the gun fired. The machine gun emplacement erupted in a geyser of dirt and sandbags; smoke and screams filled the air as munitions went up in a series of secondary explosions. A ball of flame bloomed briefly within the remnants of the emplacement and mud and hot metal rained down, clinking dully against the armoured hulk.
