It took a physical effort to control his sudden anger as the realisation struck him. The Royal Marines were to be a useful diversion, just in case the main attack was delayed by circumstances or the weather. Had Ross been trying to prepare him for that, or had he known nothing about it?
Vaughan said, ‘I should like to lead with my company, sir.’
‘Yes. I intended that you should. You have a lot of seasoned men.’
It was a kind of madness, this matter-of-fact manner in which they were discussing mass murder. Perhaps it really needed officers like Beaky Waring. No fear, no hesitation: he hadn’t had the brains to see beyond his duty.
Maxted said dully, ‘I can take the raiding party, sir.’
Jonathan was about to deny the request, then recalled what Wyke had said. He wished it was light enough to see Maxted’s face.
He said, ‘Choose your men. I’ll want you an hour before we go over.’ He turned away, although they could not see him. And why not? By the end of the day they would all be killed, or left out in the rain to die like those Germans in the wire.
‘Major Hayward?’ He saw a shadow move. ‘Oh, there you are, Peter. Thought you’d caught a bus home.’
Somebody laughed. Actually laughed. It unnerved him. ‘You will take B Company next.’ He touched Wyke’s arm and felt him tense. ‘H.Q. will keep with C Company. We can set up a field telephone when we get into position.’ They looked up as more shells screeched over the trenches. He wondered what had happened to Captain Alton’s howitzers. Sunk beneath the mud with all the other abandoned waggons and weaponry: a battlefield junk-yard.
Maxted was saying, ‘I shall need two good N.C.O.’s.’
Timbrell called, ‘Count me in, sir. More my line than swimmin’ across!’ A tall sergeant named Harriman said, ‘Me too, sir.’
‘Twelve good men.’ He seemed to be thinking aloud.
McCann guffawed. ‘No such animal in the Royals, sir!’
Jonathan had tried to prepare himself for just such a moment as this when he had read her last letter. It was never far away. And then it was now.
Someone was murmuring, ‘God help me, God help me,’ over and over again fervently, like a prayer.
Another voice rasped, ‘For Christ’s sake, Ted, stow that claptrap!’
Wyke was peering at his map with the aid of a torch while a marine held a sodden greatcoat over him to hide the light: the coat had been abandoned here, so it was assumed that its owner was no longer in need of it.
He felt someone beside him and knew it was Maxted.
‘All right, John?’ He hoped he sounded calmer than he felt. How could he ever describe it? A kind of light-headedness, with anger and despair surging around in his mind.
Maxted hesitated. ‘I just wanted to say . . .’ He stared down into the blackness as if to seek out the right words. ‘To say sorry, for the way I’ve been . . . you know.’
Wyke nodded, not understanding, but aware that it was terribly important to his friend.
‘We’ve all had about as much as we can take, John. I know I have . . . We don’t seem to be getting anywhere. It’s more men, more men all the time. I haven’t slept since I was on leave.’ He attempted to grin but it was not possible. ‘Not much then either, I have to confess.’
Maxted sounded surprised. ‘Really? I always thought you of all people—’
Timbrell came down beside them. ‘Ready, sir. Grenades are primed, seven-second fuses. Four each.’ He could have been instructing recruits.
‘Coming, Sergeant.’ Maxted gripped Wyke’s hand, and the grit and wet rasped against their skin like some kind of bond.
He said quite calmly, ‘I think we’ll not meet again, Chris.’ Then he was gone.
Wyke heard the colonel speaking with Maxted: a level tone, now so familiar, even dear to him. But he was unable to forget Maxted’s calm farewell, as if there were no way out. A man under sentence of death, and now quite able to accept it.
A few minutes more and Maxted’s party were up and over the broken parapet, sliding into mud and groping around shell holes with little more than the artillery to keep them on course.
The enemy did not return fire, nor even release a flare. The guns had succeeded in keeping their heads down if nothing else.
It was hard work: every yard was covered by shattered debris and huge spreads of soft mud. Maxted wanted to cry out as the exertion made the pain sear into his groin like a branding iron.
He tried to empty his mind, and wondered what his parents would say if they could see their precious son now.
He remembered when he had first mounted a guard at the barracks. The sunset bugles, the flag coming down very slowly, the salutes and the time-honoured ceremonial which affected even the old hands. He had been a part of it. It had been his dream. He gritted his teeth as the agony stabbed through him again.
He felt Sergeant Harriman beside him, keeping pace, arm over arm: a true light infantryman.
‘Did you see, sir?’ His whisper was almost lost in the downpour.
‘What?’
‘That last shell, sir. Saw it in the flash.’ Even he sounded shocked. ‘The bloody gunners ’ave missed it! The wire’s still there!’
Maxted took a deep breath and started forward. He retorted savagely, ‘Not our problem! Let’s get on with it!’
He was speaking to himself in quick painful gasps. Must be time. Can’t see my watch. Must remember to pull the pin from the grenade . . . He collided with a huddled corpse and thought suddenly of Second Lieutenant Rooke. Probably still hanging on the wire. His whole frame shook with silent laughter until the pain stopped it.
A red flare burst lazily over his right shoulder and Maxted pressed his face to the ground, tasting the filth and the stench. The flare was a signal, and even as the artillery fell silent for the first time in days he vaguely heard the shrill of whistles right along the line.
‘Come on!’ He wiped his face with his sleeve. They’ll be up to the wire in a minute!’
In answer a machine-gun began to chatter urgently, and so loudly that he froze with disbelief. They were almost on top of it, the noise of the gun’s rapid fire only yards away. He fumbled with his grenade satchel, and almost dropped one of them into the mud in his haste.
‘Right, lads! At the bastards!’ He tugged the pin and heard the strike lever rattle away as he thrust the live grenade into the satchel. Then he was on his feet, swaying in the mud, his coat caught in some broken barbed-wire, while he swung the satchel round his head like David’s sling. He gave a great gasp as the satchel flew from his grip and he tore himself free of the wire. How long? Seven seconds, wasn’t it?
He heard bullets fanning past him, some smacking into the mud. Then he felt a great blow in the chest and knew he could taste blood as he began to slide down the side of a shell crater.
Sergeant Harriman threw himself down as the grenades blew up in one ferocious explosion. The machine-gun fell silent, and through his deafness Harriman could hear them screaming faintly.
He pulled himself to the water-logged shell crater and knew that it was hopeless. Maxted was still sliding deeper: he would die either way.
The icy water was up to Maxted’s waist now, and he felt the freezing relief drive away the agony which had brought him close to suicide.
Down, down. It was almost over. He was free.
Sergeant Harriman, with a couple of his men, heard him cry out. Not from fear or pain. Only two words.
‘Thank you!’
And then Lieutenant John Maxted, aged twenty-one, died of his wounds.
The whistles shrilled, and scrambling like old men the marines went over the top. Several fell before they had even reached their own wire, but then there was a vivid scarlet flash followed almost immediately by a loud explosion.
Wyke gasped, They’ve done it, sir!’ He felt like cheering despite the danger and the horror of it. ‘If they can knock out the other ones . . .’ He fell silent and Jonathan said, ‘Well?’
> ‘Just something he said. He knew he was going to die.’
The sergeant-major shouted above the roar of guns and the clatter of lighter weapons, ‘Brigade’s on the line, sir! The wire’s still there! West Riding Division is in trouble!’
Jonathan said, ‘Tell them we’ve knocked out one pill-box.’ Their faces lit up to another bang. ‘Belay that. Two pill-boxes.’
In the red glow McCann looked like one of Satan’s fiends. Hayward’s company had vanished into the smoky darkness. Surely it must get lighter soon.
Major Dyer’s C Company, bayonets fixed, waited on the firestep for the order. The survivors from Conway’s company were detailed to carry ammunition when they went, and a young R.M.A. lieutenant named Jason Ellis had taken Maxted’s place with the H.Q. platoon.
Payne tugged at his chinstrap and muttered, ‘Not before time,’ as the rear artillery began to fire long-range onto the German support lines. ‘Give ’em a bloody headache!’
There was so much smoke that it was hard to tell how the first wave was getting on. Machine-guns were firing again, but on the other sector, where men would be dying, screaming as they fell into the wire they had been promised would be destroyed.
Wyke glanced towards the colonel as his face glowed in profile in another explosion. ‘Are we going now, sir?’
Jonathan turned. There’s nothing here for us.’ Then, as if afraid something might change his mind, he raised his whistle, and throughout the company other whistles replied.
‘Over the top!’ For a few seconds more Jonathan pressed his fingers into the half-frozen sand of a torn sack. Inside his mind a voice cried out like a lost soul. I’m afraid. I’m afraid. Help me.
But the voice which answered refused to acknowledge it.
‘Forward, Marines! Forward!’
Then with the others he was running and wading through the mud, past and over the bodies of men he had known, ducking and twisting as rifle-fire sang amongst them. Here and there someone fell, and he heard McCann bellow ‘At ’em, me beauties!’ One marine swung round, his teeth bared like a wild animal’s as figures loomed through the smoke, until Timbrell shouted, ‘It’s us! You bloody madman, Bidmead!’
Slowly and with relentless care, the strengthening light spread itself across a vast, devastated panorama. Marines ran from cover to cover, one pausing to empty his rifle into a small hole where some Germans had been cut off from the other wire, where they had probably been sniping at the infantry. Then a grenade, tossed as casually as a man throws a ball to his young son, finished it.
Dyer was yelling, ‘Reload! Reload, damn you!’ Then he fell, blood spurting from his throat as the life left him. The last stretch. Marines flung more grenades to keep the defenders’ heads down; and Jonathan heard the snap of cutters as the remaining wire broke under them, and they were through.
If the Germans in this one of a network of trenches and bunkers attempted to take cover they were driven to earth, where the grenades turned their holes into traps of blood. Others caught on the firestep fell back under the bayonets, the knives and the other murderous weapons that turned civilised men into beasts for as long as they could use them.
Then bruised, bloody and gasping for breath, they fired into the air and cheered. It had become lighter still, and nobody had noticed it. Ralph Vaughan, his helmet gone, a bloody wound on his cheek, was coming toward him. ‘We took it, sir! Reinforcements should be here any any moment!’
But Jonathan was staring round. ‘Where’s the adjutant? He was with me.’
Payne said roughly, ‘Here, sir.’ They stood aside as Jonathan slipped his arm around Wyke’s shoulders and tried to lift him. He had fallen on the parapet, his horizon, and lay with one outthrust hand still gripping his revolver.
Jonathan said harshly, ‘I want him taken to a dressing-station!’ He was staring around at the other world as order and discipline took over.
Vaughan said, ‘No use, sir. He’s gone.’
Jonathan stood with effort. One bullet. That was all it took. It had gone through Wyke’s breast pocket, puncturing the steel mirror he always carried there, and the photograph of his girl.
Vaughan suddenly exclaimed, ‘Colonel! You’ve been hit!’
He glanced down at his leg and the blood pumping over his boot. He had felt nothing, and even now it was more like the bursting of an old wound.
He gasped, ‘Don’t let me fall, Harry. Not now, after everything they’ve done!’
The marines parted to let them pass, some with their eyes averted when they saw where the tell-tale blood had marked him down. Payne held him tightly, his eyes stinging when some of his men saluted, or reached out and touched him.
He had called him Harry. And it mattered.
Stretcher-bearers were already picking their way through the mud and the bodies of the living and the dead. Occasionally they would stop and retrieve one. But not too many, it appeared.
Vaughan waited until they had forced the colonel onto one of the stretchers.
‘Go with him, Payne. He’ll need you even more now.’
Jonathan opened his eyes as a medical orderly fastened a shell dressing around his leg. The rain, which had not stopped, made him feel clean again.
To Vaughan he said, ‘Take care of them, Ralph. It would have been yours anyway.’
Vaughan said nothing, deeply moved although he did not understand.
Payne watched the orderly’s grim features as he made the dressing fast, until eventually the other man became aware of his hostile scrutiny and raised his head. Then he grinned, and gave a thumbs-up.
Jonathan tried to see more clearly through the pain and the rain on his face. ‘What’s happening?’
Payne slung his rifle, and hung the colonel’s helmet on the muzzle. Then he fell in step with the two stretcher-bearers, and thought what a short distance they had come, only a few hours ago. Yet so many lay dead on every hand.
He cleared his throat and answered quietly, ‘Going home, sir. That’s what.’
Postscript
In November 1917 the great push along the Ypres front came to a halt. The British armies did not succeed in taking the higher ground, where the exhausted troops might have found some relief from the freezing mud and relentless rain. The coming of winter and the disastrous weather proved to be as savage an enemy as the barbed wire, the gas and the perpetual bombardment by artillery.
Despite all the suffering and death the army never broke, nor was it defeated. There was simply no way forward any more; neither was there hope of a new offensive. When the June attacks were begun Zeebrugge had been thirty-five miles from the Ypres sector. When the offensive of 1917 ended in November, it was still over thirty miles away.
No armies had ever fought in such conditions before, and their record of courage and sacrifice remains unmatched. In less than five months the British armies fighting alongside their Empire cousins lost another quarter of a million men, killed, maimed and missing. It is almost beyond belief that in that same short period of the war another thirty-five thousand men vanished altogether, drowned in the sea of mud, forgotten, and left to die alone and undiscovered. A missing army, and a lost generation.
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Copyright © Highseas Authors Ltd 1993
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This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
First published in the United Kingdom by William Heinemann in 1993
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The Horizon (1993) Page 33
