He felt his breath accelerate. Stan treated him like a pet Cocker Spaniel, babying and fussing over him twenty-four hours a day. He needed to find contentment in the solitude of his own company and God only knows that was hard enough, he had learned that deep down he struggled to suffer the intense grip of loneliness.
Robert McCaughey’s death was noted as ‘shot while deserting’. Stan asked Sergeant Bull permission to bury Robert somewhere he might be found later. They found a spot by a copse of elms where Sergeant Bull solemnly spoke the right words over his grave. Afterwards Stan lost no time in telling the rest of his company what had really happened, and with sneering stares they quickly turned their backs on Thomas. Their contempt rose to the surface of their skin and lay bare, if they had been elsewhere Thomas might have found a bayonet pushed into his gut and left to die in agony. For the time being, however, Stan chose not to tell Sergeant Bull the real reason for Robert’s death. The time would come when he would extract retribution in his own way, if only to salvage his own conscience.
Inclement weather rarely stops soldiers from soldiering and although the snow fell heavier the following day, Sergeant Bull marched each man fit enough to carry a rifle out for rifle practice. Wet, slushy mud invaded every crevice of their bodies and clothing, trying its damndest to freeze and make them even more uncomfortable. With desperate raw courage and numb with cold they fumbled with stiffened fingers to fill the ammunition magazines, frequently cursing like cow herders when bullets slipped from their hands and disappeared into the quagmire swirling around their ankles.
“I’ll shoot the next man who drops his ammunition in the mud,” Sergeant Bull threatened. “Fritz won’t be waiting for you to fool around scratching your arses. He’ll have his bayonet stuck in your guts within seconds. Now, listen to me, the regiment needs four snipers for special training. There will be a shoot-off for all those interested in crawling through No Man’s Land up to your ears in shit and muck, looking for enemy machine-gunners to kill before they kill you.”
Heads turned and nodded with quizzical looks, and half-a-dozen stepped tentatively forward followed by approximately forty more, Thomas and Stan Banks included. Thomas, already easily the best shot in the regiment, was pulled to one side immediately. Two hours later, he was joined by three others. To his disappointment Stan Banks had made it through, along with Leslie Hill from Northampton and Neil Letts from Harrogate.
“Right, get your kit packed. Tomorrow you’ll be taken to the 1st Army sniping school at Linghem, near Aire, north of here,” Sergeant Bull informed them.
That night Stan Banks held court to those who would listen to him in the mess tent next to a field kitchen, sitting on a table with his legs resting on a broken chair he gave his account of Robert McCaughey’s death for the fourth time in as many days.
“Archie bloody Elkin, bloody well deserting he was, as plain as the nose on your face. We should have let the bastard go. Instead, poor old Robert took a bullet meant for him while trying to save him,” Stan Banks sneered.
“Perhaps he was just plain scared, like the rest of us,” someone said. “He’s not a bad lad.”
“Aye, there’s not a man here who doesn’t shit his pants when he hears them bloody big guns,” another voice called.
“Yeah, well I reckon he’s got a bloody death wish,” Stan Banks said scratching the back of his neck.
Chapter Seven
For the first time in weeks those chosen to be trained as snipers walked on a bed of firm grass instead of floundering knee-deep in a morass of stinking mud. Close to the small town of Linghem, Thomas happily found himself billeted in one of the many farmhouses scattered throughout the countryside of northern Belgium. The buildings were always one storey high and made of brick, built around a midden providing fuel. The floor was of beaten earth, with wooden shutters covering the windows instead of glass and a roaring fire blazing in an open cooking hearth. It was like heaven from hell.
The following day he lined up with twenty-three others before the sniping school instructor, Major Ryan.
“Welcome to the suicide squad. Any smokers, belchers and compulsive farters among you may leave now. I promise you the Hun will detect the stench of tobacco and shit from a hundred yards, endangering any of you unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity. Any slacking or complaining and you’ll be back in the trenches dodging the shellfire and dining with the rats. Do I make myself clear?” he boomed.
Raised in South Africa, Ryan had taken the same path as his father as a big game hunter and safari leader, and his only reasons for serving in the war were his unquenchable sense of adventure and the unique opportunity to hunt men to their death in the name of war. The fact that he found reconnoitring the enemy more difficult than stalking a springbok in the African bush never diminished his enthusiasm or appetite for the kill. Over six feet tall and clean-shaven he walked with the easy gait of a man used to being obeyed. A reasonable man, with the enviable knack of making people like him just by talking to them, the men quickly responded to him.
“Patience in stalking and concealment define a good sniper,” he continued. “It is not just about firing a rifle. Remember, gentlemen, that unfortunately, despite enthusiasm and application, poor field craft will see you victim of a well-aimed bullet from better-trained opposition. You will work in pairs, so get to know each other like brothers. Your lives will depend on the ability to read each other’s minds. And I think it’s only fair to tell you that the life expectancy of a sniper is a matter of weeks only, so anyone uneasy with these odds can leave now without any feeling of shame.”
Men shuffled their feet uncomfortably and scratched their heads with doubtful fingers, casting dubious glances at each other. No man moved out of line. Thomas found himself paired with Neil Letts, a man with a habit of closing one eye whenever he spoke, and a cleft in his chin so deep he could hold a penny between the creases. Yet, he was a pleasant man with a large moon-shaped face and a dry sense of humour, and Thomas quickly came to like him. Stan’s attitude remained unchanged, and Leslie Hill, who seemed to follow Banks’s lead, also chose to keep his distance. Thomas smiled and shrugged. For the moment he felt content with his own company. Too young to be a man himself, he sometimes thought other men immature.
The first two days were spent stripping, assembling and maintaining their Lee Enfield .303s until they could literally do it with their eyes closed.
“Map and compass reading is vital. The ability to report the strengths and position of the enemy is more important than killing machine-gunners,” Ryan began. “Wooden sticks painted various colours will be placed at different locations in the surrounding countryside. Using map co-ordinates you will recover the sticks and write a detailed report on the area, for example, cover, camouflage, imaginary movement of enemy troops and gun emplacements. Thousands of men’s lives may depend on the accuracy of your reports, so get it right.”
“Some of us ain’t too good at writing, Sir,” someone called out.
“Then make sure you have a good memory. One of you will carry a telescope or a pair of field glasses to identify targets and give accurate range distances. Can anyone speak German?” Nobody moved. “Pity, sometimes verbal orders might be overheard behind the lines, enabling allied troops to be ready for a surprise attack.”
After days spent firing at targets set at different distances, the men improved under the watchful eye of Major Ryan and his second-in-command, Sergeant Christopher. Eventually the pairs made their way towards mocked-up enemy lines. When thirty minutes had passed, they reversed their roles, one spotting, the other shooting, always alert and working as a well-oiled team. Sometimes they used portable camouflaged hides made from hessian and turned at an angle to avoid detection from the gun flash. Weather became an important factor: whenever it was still and frosty, gun smoke hanging in the air gave away their position. In sunlight, a glint from a barrel betrayed them, drawing fire from snipers; rain would make a bullet fly high, and a slight breeze could drift o
ne six feet either way over one thousand yards. On a good day, a sniper could easily kill ten of the enemy.
“Snipers fight a dirty war, so if you ever get captured, best to keep your mouths closed,” Sergeant Christopher told them. “A single sniper can demoralise a whole enemy battalion; his presence makes them nervous, and they walk around with their heads down, expecting to be the next target. They are reluctant to do guard duty and become edgy. I once saw a man in a trench take a bullet in the back of his neck; he was so nervous he leapt five feet into the air from a standing position and was dead before he hit the ground.”
Ryan demonstrated various methods of discovering the enemy’s position, and one of the most effective, which brought smiles from the trainees, was the use of a dummy’s head. Looking almost lifelike from a distance, it was placed on the end of a periscope with a lighted cigarette placed in the lips connected to a rubber tube. Hidden below in the bottom of the trench, a soldier would puff and blow in the tube giving the impression of a careless soldier having a smoke. Maintaining the periscope in line, the bullet holes revealed the position of the enemy sniper, allowing the threat to be eliminated. The men learned rapidly and effectively, and time passed quickly. When Ryan felt satisfied that they were competent enough to be employed in the field, he shook each man by the hand and they returned to their respective battalions as accomplished snipers.
Gradually Stan Banks reluctantly came to admit to himself that he’d made a grave error in turning his back on Thomas. He’d tried unsuccessfully to inspire confidence in himself, and he realised that watching out for Thomas had merely been a foil for the fear gnawing and tearing at his own insides. Yet, for the time it lasted it had worked, and he’d felt gratified by his good fortune. Now circumstances had changed for the worse. His nerves dangled unfettered, loose and out of control, his emotions no longer responded and he had changed almost beyond recognition: his hair hung lank, streaked grey at the temples, and he continually chewed at his bottom lip. He had always considered himself immune to sentiment, a jack the lad, a cock of the north, with an answer and a reason for everything. But it was no longer so. The rumble of the guns and the sight of blood turned his bones to jelly. Even worse was the sound of wounded men screaming in pain and crying out for their mothers, or pleading to their mates to finish them off with a bullet to the head. Those sounds haunted him relentlessly during the day, and he looked around for something else to occupy his mind. Without him realising it, Thomas had become more than just a friend; he had become his rock, his covenant in which he could conceal his fear. Now he floundered ensnared in a trap of his own making, from which it might be impossible to escape with dignity and honour. Relaxed only by the privilege of sleep, his hands continued to shake from the moment he woke.
Finally the training was over, and the four men rejoined their battalion on the front line between Carnoy and Montauban, in the southernmost sector of the British Army. Already half of the original conscripts were missing or blown to pieces. Thomas glanced around for faces he might recognise only to be met with hollow stares from men he’d never seen before. They were quick to mingle on the whole, most as hazy and anxious as the next man about what the future held for them. When not on sentry duty most of them slept – something that was not easy to do. Sometimes they played cards. Some sat deep in concentration staring down at a chessboard, an opposing bishop threatening a vulnerable queen more important than raining shells and exploding shrapnel. A passable mug of tea might break the monotonous boredom and sever the sense of smell from the foul-smelling heaps of human waste. For others, time passed by in a sleepless blur. A few sat quietly folded up neatly, fearful to stretch out their legs in case they get trodden on by all those who pass up and down during their mind-sapping shifts in the trenches. Others, afraid to sleep for fear of freezing to death and being devoured by rats listened reluctantly to someone reading passages out loud from the Bible.
“Stop that bloody claptrap or go and tell it to Fritz. You give me the bloody creeps, you Bible-bashing bastard!” someone roared from further down the line.
Tempers frayed and rifles were cocked, threatening death. Some smiled a greeting, pretending to be calm, contemplating the sound of the officer’s whistle and the fear-instilling order to go over the top to a certain death in a hailstorm of bullets. If fortunate enough to survive the onslaught, an enemy shell might hurl them like ragdolls twenty feet into the air to land broken and bleeding until night fell and stretcher-bearers from both sides searched for those still alive. Those with missing limbs might survive long enough to be patched up and sent home, where women at railway stations would faint at the sight of them, whilst others would go to field hospitals to recuperate until ready to be returned to the trenches. The less fortunate had their remains shovelled into empty sandbags and dropped into unmarked graves.
“Oy, Horace, give us that song about the three old ladies locked in the lavatory. Old Fritz likes that song, he does. I bet you a fag he joins in.”
“Yeah, on account they don’t have any of their own songs, too bloody miserable to write them, they are.”
So Horace started up the first chorus and, sure enough, old Fritz joined in and sang the second. When the singing finally came to an end, both opposing sides applauded each other with clapping and laughter.
“Quiet now, lads, no fraternising with the enemy, you know the rules,” Sergeant Bull said, appearing from the gloom like a bobbing ghost.
“Come on, Sarge, while we’re singing we’re not shooting the shit out of each other, are we?”
Sergeant Bull turned without a word and continued his rounds further down the trenches. He knew their courage and quiet determination were never in question.
After dusk, when darkness cloaked No Man’s Land, Thomas and Neil Letts left to probe the enemy’s defences. Crawling less than twenty yards from a German machine-gun emplacement they lay listening to the sound of sizzling sausages and the smell of hot coffee.
“Come on, I’m going in,” Letts whispered, drawing his bayonet.
“It’s not our job to fight them in the trenches, you know that,” Thomas hissed.
“Yeah, well, fuck ‘em, I’ve got a hankering for some of those sausages. Are you with me or not?”
Thomas chewed at his lip and sighed. “If you want to go I don’t suppose I have any choice.”
Through a hole in the German barbed wire they dropped silently into the trench. Immediately Thomas felt uneasy at the lack of sentries on duty and the hairs on his neck bristled with caution. He’d half-expected the trench to be manned every few yards by patrolling Germans armed to the teeth, and he felt certain something bad was going to happen if they remained too long. Instead, they were met with a wall of silence, broken only by the idle chatter of the three men cooking sausages over a fire in a split fuel can. The three Germans turned and looked up, their faces clouded with fear and surprise. A few frantic moments later they slipped to the ground with slit throats.
“Christ, they live like bloody lords, and look at these trenches, bloody bone dry they are. So how come we have to swim around with bloody rats day and night? Ought to get our donkeys down here to show them how it’s done,” Letts grumbled.
“Donkeys, what donkeys?”
“Officers, for Chrissake Archie. Sometimes, talking to you is like trying to change a fan belt while the engine’s running.”
Thomas, not having the slightest idea what Letts was talking about, nodded and began pulling the greatcoats and boots from the three bodies. Letts crouched and slid into a narrow dugout, minutes later he emerged with a sandbag full of tinned peaches, packets of French cigarettes, pipe tobacco and something Tommies prized most of all, razorblades and shaving soap.
“Here, hold onto these while I collect those spiked helmets. Cooks and pen pushers sitting on their arses behind the lines pay a bloody fortune for them. Tell those at home they captured them single-handed, they do, the lying sods.”
Satisfied they had all they could carry they mad
e their way to their trenches. Glum faces relaxed into happy smiles when Letts tipped out the contents of the sandbag. Morale soared one hundred per cent.
“Good old Fritz, nice of him to allow us a few luxuries free of charge. I hope he doesn’t miss them,” Leslie Hill grinned.
“Nah, I don’t think he’ll mind too much,” Letts smirked.
“Soon be going home to Ruby at this rate, eh, what do you reckon Archie?” a voice called from the darkness.
Like lightning the remark quickly became a byword running throughout the battalion. Something the men adopted and clung to as a form of comfort to remind them that life in the trenches wasn’t the only way of existence in an otherwise cruel world. Later, the byword spread down the trenches, and when conditions became unbearable and shoulders wilted and drooped, the men would shout, “Come on lads, chins up, we’ll soon be going home to
Ruby.”
That night they perched the spiked helmets on bayonets and ran up and down the trenches taunting the Germans.
“Well done, Letts, and you, Elkin, bring us back Kaiser Bill tomorrow and we can all go home to Ruby,” Sergeant Bull said with a rare smile. “But be careful, lads, best not to strain your luck.”
Three days later Thomas sat on the wet fire-step cleaning bullets and re-stocking his ammunition pouches. The time they dreaded had finally arrived – they were going over the top, the greatest test a man will ever face, the old-timers told him. When he finished, he greased the rifle bolt one more time and worked it back and forth until satisfied only an act of cruel misfortune would give it cause to jam.
In the trenches there was no warmth, only the damp and stench of human habitation. Seized in a grip of uncontrolled desperation he squeezed his eyes tight shut as fear clutched at his heart and prayed his impending death might come quick and clean. Overhead the chill hung like a black cloud concealing the darkest thoughts. Not one of the men knew an inch of the terrain ahead or where the Germans were entrenched. Frightened they huddled together for comfort, yet oblivious of each other, waiting like chess pieces to be moved at whim to join in the final push on the Somme. Their cynical ribaldry now gone yet not unmissed. Hot breath vaporised in great steaming clouds like that of men chain-smoking cigarettes, and time stood still listening to two men arguing whether it was Monday or Tuesday – it was Sunday morning. Liberal helpings of fiery tots of rum scorched their gullets and curdled in their stomachs while they waited with haggard faces, gaunt with fatigue and fear of a cruel death. From once youthful faces bristly beards sprouted, and eyes sunk so deep in black sockets it was impossible to tell their colour stared unseeing into nowhere. At the scrape of a man sharpening his bayonet eyes raised and muscles stiffened involuntarily. The time was seven-twenty-five in the morning. Photographs and snapshots appeared from pockets. Men with moist eyes kissed the smiling paper faces, uttered words of endearments and mumbled a prayer. Tormented by jangling nerves they waited, clutching their rifles, minus their backpacks and dressed for battle. Strapped to the back of every fifth man was a pickaxe or shovel that would keep him upright and unable to dodge the enemy fire.
Coming Home Page 7
