Starshine

by John Wilcox

  The taste of the rum inspired a sudden thought. ‘Anybody know the date?’

  The corporal responded. ‘I think it’s the fourth of August, Sarn’t Major.’

  Hickman put his head back, so that the edge of his steel helmet tilted upwards revealing his face. He was grinning. ‘Well blimey! Do you know what, lads,’ he said. ‘Today’s my birthday.’

  ‘How old are yer, sir?’ one of the younger men called.

  He answered slowly, emphasising each word. ‘I am exactly twenty-one bloody years old today.’

  The corporal’s disbelief echoed that of the rest of them. ‘What? Only twenty-one …?’ he said, his mouth open. His thoughts were unspoken but clear for all that. This tall, supremely confident warrant officer acted and looked – mud-covered and completely dishevelled as he was – like a veteran, as though he was at least in his mid thirties. Yet he was one of the youngest in the group.

  Jim grinned and nodded. ‘Yup. If I was at home now, I’d be given the key of the door.’

  The thought removed the grin from his face. The key of the door! It would be a party – probably with his parents and those of Polly, with Bertie and his dad thrown in, too, of course. And most of all, with Polly. They would be crowded into the little front room and his dad would sing ‘Lily of Laguna’ and everybody would be a bit tipsy. And he would be with Polly … He gulped, then realised that they were all staring at him.

  Then, slowly, the corporal raised a finger and, turning to the others, said, ‘Right, lads. One, two, three …’

  Hesitantly, at first, then more strongly, the words of ‘Happy Birthday to You’ rose from the shell hole. Jim put his finger to his lips and the volume dropped a little but the song was concluded, ‘Happy birthday, Sergeant Major, happy birthday to you.’

  Hickman realised that his nose was running. He sniffed. ‘Very kind, lads. Thank you very much. But best keep our voices down.’ He handed his water bottle to the corporal. ‘Here, have a drink with me. There’s too much rum in it for me, anyway. Pass it round. There’s just about enough for everyone if you just take a sip.’

  And so passed one of the strangest birthdays that Jim Hickman had ever experienced, tucked into a shell hole, just about fifty yards from a line of enemy strongholds that they proposed to attack in a do-or-die attempt to silence them.

  ‘Well, anyway, sir,’ said the corporal, ‘you’ll remember this birthday as long as you live …’

  His voice tailed away, for the unspoken ending to the sentence was in everyone’s thoughts: ‘… which will probably not be very long.’

  Jim ventured a look over the rim of the crater, anxious in case the singing had been heard. But he saw no movement to the front or between the pillboxes. More to the point, there was nothing from the other shell holes, either. They were, of course, out in no man’s land on their own.

  He looked at the elderly corporal who had conducted the singing. He was not from A Company but Jim had noticed him in the line, a quiet, efficient NCO, doing his work without fuss or bluster – a touch unusual in the brutal British army of 1917. He moved over to sit next to him.

  ‘What’s your name, Corporal?’

  ‘Burgess, sir.’

  ‘You can drop the “sir” till we get back to the line. First name?’

  ‘Martin.’ Jim noticed that he had crinkly laugh lines at the corner of his eyes.

  ‘What did you do in Civvy Street, Martin?’

  ‘I was a teacher, at King Edward’s Grammar in Birmingham.’

  ‘Oh yes? The one in Aston or the posh one?

  Burgess grinned. ‘I’m afraid it was the posh one.’

  ‘And what did you teach the posh kids?’

  ‘Latin.’ He laughed. ‘Not a damned bit of use out here.’

  Hickman nodded. ‘Why didn’t you go for a commission?’

  ‘Well.’ The man thought for a moment. ‘For one thing, my age would have gone against me, I felt – I’m forty, you see – and for another, I wasn’t sure that I was cut out to be a soldier. Oh, I’m fit enough, though this mud and rain plays hell with my knees. Seeing so many of my sixth-formers going straight out to the front, I felt a bit of a fraud, so I volunteered into the ranks. I just wanted to do my bit.’ He looked around ruefully. ‘I think now, perhaps, that I may have overdone it a touch.’

  Hickman laughed. Then, instinctively, he ducked his head as a shell hissed overhead and exploded some two hundred yards down the slope. ‘Damn,’ he said. ‘They know we’re here and they’re going to try and blast us out. Heads down, everybody.’

  So began twenty minutes of intensive shelling, a mixture of high explosives adding to the craters all around them. This form of bombardment was less than effective, however, for not one shell landed in their refuge and the danger of the near misses was virtually nullified by them landing in the soft mud. More of a threat were the shrapnel clusters that exploded above them and sent their jagged steel fragments raining down like deadly confetti.

  Three of the men were hit, as they crouched face down on the slopes of the crater. Two were killed outright, the shafts penetrating their backs and necks, and the other sustained wounds to his legs, which rendered him unable to walk. The little party was now reduced to an effective force of only seventeen.

  ‘Sorry, chaps,’ said Hickman as the shelling eased and then finally ceased. ‘We can’t bury these lads, so we’ll just have to leave them here. You two,’ he gestured at two of the men, ‘will stay with this wounded man and help him back to the line as soon as it gets dark. That leaves us with fifteen men to take possession of the whole German line.’ He grinned. ‘Can’t think of a better army to do it with. Now, Corporal,’ he gestured to the lance corporal, ‘I think you’d better be on your way. Remember: covering fire from the Lewises on the pillboxes at about dusk. Good luck, lad. Take your time.’

  The lance corporal clearly did not fancy his chances, for he gulped. But he gave a cheery nod and wormed his way out of sight over the edge of the crater.

  Hickman cursed that the two dead men were both specialist bombardiers, for he would have needed them in the assault, but he pocketed their grenades and, like the rest, sat down to wait.

  ‘Do you think that Jerry will send a party out to see if we’re still here after the shelling?’ asked Burgess.

  ‘Good point. You’ll be an officer yet. Thank you. Take first watch looking up to their line and then I’ll relieve you. Don’t show much of yourself.’

  So the minutes ticked away until the grey clouds began to get darker and, inevitably, the rain came on again. Jim welcomed it for he hoped that, after the shelling and the failure of the British attack, the German sentries might be just a touch less on guard as the rain tumbled down. At least, those deadly machine-gunners out in their foxholes might be miserable and a touch careless, huddled and sheltering under their capes. He looked about him and then at his watch. Eight-twenty-five and visibility now considerably reduced. He would attack, he resolved, as soon as Bertie and his men began to shoot.

  But they did not.

  By eight-forty there was still no firing from down the slope, so Hickman decided they had to go before it became too dark to see what they were attacking. Accordingly, he slipped the bolt on his rifle, took out his three grenades and called to them all.

  ‘It looks as though my message back to our line has not got through,’ he said, ‘so we shall have to attack without covering fire. Never mind, it should be sufficiently dark for us to get close enough before they see us. Listen, we can’t hope to seriously damage the pillboxes just with Mills bombs, but, if we deposit one in each of the boxes that I intend to target, that should kill the crew inside. That leaves three grenades for the machine-gun posts dug in around the boxes. You and I,’ he indicated one of the men, a large bombardier, ‘will each take a pillbox with a grenade each; just one bomb, so we must make it count. Corporal Burgess, you will take the other bombs and the rest of the men and attack the machine-gun nests.’ He distributed the grenades and the
n took a deep breath. ‘Right, boys. Let’s go. Good luck.’

  He crawled to the lip of the crater and peered over. Everything up ahead seemed quiet and so, distressingly, did everything behind him along the old German line recaptured by the attack. Gritting his teeth he crawled over and began to make his way, as best he could, squirming through the mud between the shell holes. It was a depressing way to begin an attack, crawling in the mud and the rain, but at least he was distributing his weight more or less evenly over the mud and he did not sink down. He looked behind. The rest were following.

  Suddenly a flare soared upwards from the German lines. ‘Freeze,’ he shouted and lay still.

  The star shell hung and then slowly descended, lighting the dismal scene. But nothing ensued. Hickman breathed again. It was obviously just a precautionary measure by the Germans. He waved his arm and resumed his crawl, awkwardly holding his rifle to keep its firing mechanism out of the mud.

  After a further ten minutes, he realised that he was only about thirty yards away from the nearest pillbox, which loomed ahead out of the dusk, a machine-gun barrel poking out of each of its slits. He examined it carefully; could he reproduce the successful tactic of the raid of 1915 – crawling below the lowest trajectory of the guns so that they could not fire down at him? Doubtful. He attempted to locate the machine guns that he knew had been dug in surrounding the stronghold, but he could see no sign of them in the gathering gloom. He crawled on.

  Then another flare hissed upwards. Damn! This must mean that they had been seen. He eased his rifle into position and aimed at the nearest slit, just above the gun barrel poking out from it. Before he was able to squeeze the trigger, however, it blazed into life. Its flash, though, gave him a target and he fired. Immediately the gun ceased firing but only to be replaced by about six others, from the other pillboxes and from hitherto hidden pits arranged around them.

  The flare died away in dozens of tiny starshines but the guns continued to fire, the bullets thudding into the mud around Hickman and behind him. He attempted to rise to his knees to give himself a base from which to hurl his bomb but he slipped, lost his purchase in the mud and rolled down a crater, ending with his boots just inches above the gas-shrouded pool at the bottom. Behind, he heard cries as the bullets found their targets. He also heard a rattle of machine-gun fire from the British line, presumably in retaliation.

  Jim lay winded and realised that tears were running down his cheeks; tears of what – frustration or sadness at the losses he knew the men he had led so foolhardedly must now be incurring? He didn’t know. But he realised that his attack was over before it had begun. They could never hope to get near enough to this new kind of line without being cut down. Two explosions up ahead showed that two men, at least, had been able to release their grenades. And then there was silence.

  Suddenly, there was a disturbance at the edge of the crater and he swung his rifle upwards, to catch a glimpse of grey hair under a steel helmet.

  ‘You all right, sir?’ called Burgess.

  ‘Only wounded pride. What about the others?’

  Burgess shook his head. ‘Myself and another chap got close enough to hurl our grenades at the machine guns but they fell short. The other bloke was just ahead of me and he got riddled with bullets, but I sheltered behind him for a bit and stayed unhurt and then slid down here. I’m afraid all of the others were shot down as they tried to get on. Sorry, sir …’ His voice tailed away.

  ‘Don’t call me “sir” out here. I’ve completely fucked it up. I’m not worthy of being called anything.’ Hickman wiped his brow, spreading more mud across his face. ‘I should never have tried to – what was it you called it? – take on the whole German line. Bloody barmy. Ah well.’

  ‘Now, don’t take it so hard. We had orders to attack and you did your best to carry them out.’ Burgess’s voice, its upper-class accent sounding somehow incongruous in the shell hole, took on a bitter tone. ‘It’s not your fault that our high command consists of idiots who have no idea of what they are ordering us to do. It might help if some of them came up to the line sometime to see for themselves. I consider it disgraceful.’

  Hickman gave a wan smile. ‘Spoken like a Latin master. Just as well I am stuck out here and no longer a sergeant major, otherwise I would have had to run you in for … something or other. Ah shit, Martin. What a mess! All those good men gone. I just hope that the two chaps with the wounded bloke made it.’

  ‘What do we do now, then?’

  ‘We get back. I am determined that two of us, at least, get out of this. We wriggle back, Corporal. But let’s wait a bit, until they settle down. Let them think they have killed us all.’

  ‘Do you think they will send out a patrol to check?’

  ‘I doubt it. A bit too dangerous, I would say, with the lines so close. It’s pretty dark now. Let’s give it just five minutes and then go. Ah, blast it. Do you remember the code word for the day? I don’t want to be shot by our own blokes.’

  ‘Yes. I should. It’s Horace.’

  ‘What? Ah, yes. Latin, of course. It’s good to be stuck in the mud with a scholar.’

  The crawl back was horrendous. Not so much for the danger, for both lines were now quiet, but for the obstacles – the once-human obstacles – that they had to avoid. It was impossible to be certain that any of the bodies that lay strewn across that fetid slope were still alive but certainly none was moving. Halfway along the journey, Jim came across the body of the lance corporal whom he had sent to ask Bertie to give cover to the attack. He was lying face down, his back riddled with bullets. He lay with many others.

  There was no wire in front of the old German trench and the password saved them from nervous friendly fire. They slipped over the edge of the trench and lay gasping on the fire step, as much from relief as exhaustion.

  The word went along the trench and Captain Cavendish squatted by their side. ‘Bloody glad to see you back, Hickman, and you, too, Corporal. Any wounded men left out there, do you think?’

  ‘I doubt it, sir. We crawled back over so many bodies. The attack was hopeless, you know.’

  The young man coughed. ‘Mustn’t talk like that, Sarn’t Major. Orders are orders.’

  ‘How many men have we lost, then, sir?’

  Cavendish’s voice was weary. ‘About sixty per cent of the battalion, I would say. Colonel’s dead, so is the adjutant. I am the senior one left and in temporary command. A Company is in shreds – just about a dozen men left. One good bit of news for you, though, Hickman. The two chaps and the wounded man you sent back made it all right. They told me about your attack on the pillboxes. Sorry, we couldn’t do much to help.’

  Jim looked along the trench. ‘Corporal Murphy. Is he all right?’

  ‘Ah yes. He wanted to go out and look for you but I ordered him to stay here. We needed him and his Lewises in case of a counter-attack. Look here, Hickman. You’d oblige me if you could do a final count on the company. I just haven’t had time. Can’t let you sleep, I’m afraid, because we are to be relieved during the night. A new lot are coming up and …’ his voice dropped in tone, as though in disbelief, ‘they’re going to renew the attack in the morning, God help them. There’s food at company HQ – get what you can.’

  With a nod, he was gone.

  Jim found Bertie Murphy cleaning his Lewis gun with a piece of oily rag, his movements slow and fumbling, his face melancholic in the darkness. It lit up, however, when he saw his old comrade.

  ‘They wouldn’t let me come and look for yer,’ he said, grasping Hickman’s hand. ‘I really thought you’d gone to Jesus this time, son. I really did. Oh, Jim.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know how long we’ll be spared in this terrible business. When the firin’ started, with you out there, I guessed you’d be tryin’ to do something daft, so I blazed away as best I could to give you cover, but bullets don’t do much against concrete, so they don’t. But you’re back, so thank the good Lord.’

  ‘Bad pennies always turn up, Bertie
. But we’ve lost more than half the battalion and what’s left of us are going back down the line in an hour or so, when the relief comes. Then they’re going to have another go in the morning.’

  Bertie blew his nose in the oily rag and shook his head once again. ‘Mad bastards. That’s what they are. Mad bastards. It’s just not doin’ any good.’ He waved his hand. ‘All of this stuff. We’re getting’ nowhere, but this stupid killin’ goes on. Jesus must be weepin’.’

  ‘Are you on guard?’

  ‘I think all of us are. Nobody’s told us to stand down.’

  ‘Right. Well you stand down now. I’ll go along the line and get a guard mounted. Try and get some sleep, old lad.’

  The relieving battalion came in at about 3 a.m. and what was left of the battalion – some one hundred and fifty exhausted men and only three officers – slipped away down the slope, picking their way warily between the shell holes and the bodies of their dead comrades. Dawn was breaking when they eventually reached Ypres and began filing through the wreckage of the old town.

  They lay in rest near Poperinghe, licking their wounds and taking in contingents of men from other battle-wrecked regiments and drafts of white-faced youngsters from back home. Black Jack Flanagan once again had survived the fighting, as had the battalion’s regimental sergeant major, a fiercely moustached old Regular who had fought at Omdurman with Kitchener. This was a relief to Jim and Bertie, for Flanagan would surely have been next in line for promotion to that post if the old man had gone.

  Two parcels were awaiting Jim. One from his mother, revealing the usual packets of Woodbines and a knitted woollen scarf, and the other from Polly, containing a pair of very fine leather gloves. Birthday cards came with both.

  ‘Ah, damn me eyes, Jim, I forgot yer birthday,’ cried Bertie. ‘Sorry, lad. Now, tell me what the sweet lass says.’