Coming Home

by Roy E. Stolworthy

  With the same shortened bayonet he’d used in the mines at Messines Ridge in his hand, Thomas closed in on the German trenches. Moses turned his head skywards and closed his eyes. Convinced Thomas was about to receive the only thing he ever wanted: a glorious death, to cleanse himself of guilt over his brother. Half-a-dozen Germans cowered, dropped their weapons and threw their hands up in surrender. A grizzled old German officer in a tight fitting uniform cut them down with his pistol. Thomas slashed at the officer’s throat and with a grimace he thought of Archie.

  “That’s for you, Archie, that’s for you,” he shrieked.

  Inside the dugout he picked up a spade and buried it in the first German’s skull. Like a man set adrift from reality, he cut and battered the four occupants cowering in the corner. When he came out he was soaked in blood. His mouth hung open as he panted for breath, his eyes crazed liked those of a rabid animal. Thick streamers of snot hung from his nose and spittle dribbled from his mouth.

  Moses stared with pity in his eyes and a great sadness surged over him like an incoming tide. Stan Banks’s arrival brought the short cameo to a halt.

  “Bloody hell, you look as if you fell out of an abattoir. You need to get yourself cleaned up. Gave old Fritz a right kicking this time, didn’t we?” Stan Banks said, wiping the blood from his bayonet on a dead German. “I reckon tomorrow’s going to be another day like today.”

  It didn’t turn out to be a day similar to the day before. But a day they’d experienced many times in the past. The rain sheeted down. Dust turned into mud and mud evolved into a clinging quagmire. Artillery became bogged down and without a firm platform to fire from became useless. Once again it became a war of attrition, man versus man in close hand-to-hand fighting, no quarter asked and none given. The assailant would smell his victim’s stale breath as he pushed his bayonet into the yielding flesh.

  “Right, boys, one more big push and we can have a day off. This time we’re going in with the Canadians,” Sergeant Bull called down the trench, attempting to muster morale into the weary men.

  “What’s up? The bloody Aussies had enough and pulled back for a rest, why haven’t we? We can’t go on forever,” Stan Banks grumbled.

  “Yeah, Stan’s bloody right, what’s this place called we’re supposed to take now while up to our necks in shit and mud?” Atlas Blunder complained.

  “Poelcappelle, and I don’t want any more talk like that. The quicker it’s done the quicker we can go home to Ruby,” Sergeant Bull snapped angrily.

  “Poor old Ruby, she’ll be ninety by the time we’ve finished arsing around here for Chrissake,” Leslie Hill muttered, staring down at his boots. “And my old woman will be a dipsomaniac by the time I get home.”

  “Yes, that’s if we ever get home alive,” another disgruntled voice came from the far end of the trench.

  Sergeant Bull knew how the men felt. He felt the same – tired and weary of pulling their bodies through the clinging mud, muscles cold and aching, stopping every ten minutes to clean their rifles and change the hessian used to keep the weapons dry. The camaraderie was rapidly disintegrating and the steady banter absent from the everyday chatter. “Our job is to work the flanks and knock out the concrete pillboxes,” he called out. “We’ll use hand grenades. We’ll go in pairs, one to throw the grenades and the other to keep an eye out for snipers. This is going to be a hard fight, lads, so stick together and good luck. Moses, you’re with me.”

  Thomas looked up quickly. Moses glanced back and shrugged. He had always gone into battle with Thomas by his side and pairs always preferred to remain together. Sergeant Bull ignored the shrugs and grimaced.

  “Come on, Archie boy, we’ll crack a few heads between us,” Atlas grinned, listening to the slurp as he pulled his foot from the mud.

  At twenty minutes past five in the morning, the creeping barrage opened up and Thomas and Atlas began making their way towards their objectives. The conditions were worse than anything they had experienced since the Somme, and men disappeared in water-filled shell holes never to be seen again as the battalion pressed forward. Atlas’s legendary eyesight proved a God-send. He seemed to possess the ability to tell the colour of a chameleon’s eyes from half a mile away.

  “There, Thomas,” he said, nodding his head and raising his rifle. Thomas was still searching when Atlas sent the German to the bottom of the shell hole with a bullet in his temple. He despatched four more German snipers before Thomas had laid his eyes on any of them. Further on, they stopped, their way barred by a wide stream with two hundred yards of marshland on the other side.

  “Wait here, I’ll go on ahead and make sure it’s clear and find a place to cross. Wait for my signal,” Thomas said, wading knee-high across the stream.

  Atlas, as brave as he was, could only lumber under the best of conditions. He would make a perfect target for the keen-eyed German snipers. Cautiously Thomas made his way through the marshland before dropping to his stomach and crawling towards the lip of a shell hole. With a bit of luck it might be empty and he could call Atlas to join him. A few feet away he strained his ears. Nothing. He pressed forward. About to slip into the trench, his heart skipped a beat and his breath stopped in his lungs at the sight of a German’s head. Slowly it reared up from the shell hole and stared at him from less than two feet away, the face pale with red rosy cheeks and a flawless complexion, the eyes soft grey and wispy gold hair sprouted from beneath his helmet. He smiled a small smile revealing slightly protruding milk white teeth. The smile was friendly and warm, like the meeting of two old friends.

  “Hello, Tommy,” he said.

  Then, with a high-pitched scream, he disappeared from sight and slithered into the shell hole mumbling something about God, and vanished over the opposite edge leaving one of his boots and his backpack entrenched in the mud. Thomas closed his eyes and felt his heart hammering against his chest. In a mild state of shock he felt certain he was dreaming. At last he caught his breath and, raising his hand, signalled for Atlas to join him. From across the marsh Atlas came in a cloud of spray like a migrating water buffalo with half-a-dozen crocodiles on his tail, and fell head first into the shell hole. In the backpack they discovered an orange, a tin of dates, half a black sausage, a pack of playing cards made in the USA with pictures of undressed women on the back and a photograph of a woman who might have been his mother.

  “I like dates,” Atlas said, downing them in two gulps. Next he devoured the black sausage leaving Thomas with the orange, a picture of a middle-aged woman and a pack of playing cards. “I like oranges as well,” he said.

  Thomas handed him the orange and put the picture back in the pack, stuffed the cards into his tunic pocket, Moses or Stan would find a use for them.

  Stealthily working their way round the back of the first concrete pillbox, they hesitated before taking stock of their position. Before them rows of concrete pillboxes were cleverly situated to provide a deadly crossfire, making any form of headlong attack tantamount to suicide. Inside they saw the movements of gunners preparing for the impending attack.

  “Christ, our lads don’t have a chance in hell of getting past that lot. We’ve got to try and get inside and turn the bloody gun on the Germans to give them a bit more time,” Thomas said.

  “Good idea. Right now the troops are held up by the marshland. There were hundreds of them looking for somewhere to cross while I was down there. Do you think there’ll be something to eat in those pillboxes?” Atlas asked.

  “Yes, might be a couple of dead Germans,” Thomas grinned.

  “Yeah, well I better go first then, before you get there and eat them all,” Atlas chuckled, moving away.

  The entrances to the pillboxes were down four steps cut into the earth, each pillbox contained a gunner and a loader. Atlas killed both in seconds. The only access available from which to use the sniper rifle was through a slit in the bunker overlooking the salient concealing the German snipers, as soon as the Germans realised they were being attacked from
the rear they quickly started to fall back. Atlas carried the heavy machine-gun onto the roof of the box and started raking the remaining pillboxes behind them, while Thomas picked off anyone foolish enough to show himself. Within minutes the Allies had broken through and were looking for blood. Shouting and screaming they ran over the enemy trenches, intent on taking no prisoners. An exhausted lance corporal oozing sweat and spattered with blood stared at the carnage.

  “Touch me, mate, and tell me I’m alive. Do I look like I’m alive?” he asked a dazed sergeant.

  “Yeah, you’re still alive, all right, lad, well done.”

  No one took any notice of the scavengers taking watches and rings from warm dead bodies, ripping open pockets and searching for anything of value. Some even pulled boots off the corpses. They had learned long ago that there is no honour in death. There is death, and there is life, nothing in between. In Flanders death meant no more than a thrust of a bayonet or the squeeze of a trigger, or a boot squashing a rat’s head.

  Nine days later the snipers sighed with relief and moved back to a place Vlamertinghe, a large tented rest and recreation area that served as a quiet area. Those numbed and shattered into silence by the sound of artillery were left to recover their senses. Wounds healed and most broken nerves remained broken forever. Men played football and cricket and slept in beds without their boots on. The luxury of sitting down to a meal without the company of a horde of squealing rats of all sizes scratching and clawing to get to the food was unheard of. They used knives and forks instead of the tip of a bloodstained bayonet, and kept their table manners impeccable in a bid to prove that they were men and not animals. They ate slowly and methodically, without having to listen to hundreds of frogs and toads croaking through the night in the water-filled shell holes of No Man’s Land. In a bid for sanity, some even denied the trenches had ever existed.

  “Wanted to spend a bit of time with the missus, but the bastards wouldn’t let me. My bones are aching for some slap and tickle, and I can’t see me lasting much longer without the five-fingered widow,” Stan Banks moaned.

  “The five-fingered widow?” Atlas said frowning. “Who’s she? I’ve never met a widow, you know.”

  “Well, you’ll be meeting plenty if you get out of this shithole,” Leslie Hill laughed. “You’ll be able to take your pick, mate.”

  Thomas listened to the ever-present banter with a smile. To him it was an education in life, like being in a school for adults only. Everybody had a story to tell, some sad and some worse than sad, but all were told with a dry humour that brought a smile to the face.

  “I’ve been out with a widow you know,” Harry Kershaw from Morecombe said with a serious face. “Married at the time she were. Seemed like her hands were on the end of rubber bands. I didn’t know where they were going next I didn’t, never left a button on me undone.” Sergeant Bull smiled a satisfied smile. Already their morale had begun to rise.

  Thomas ran his fingers through his hair and cast his mind back. Dilly, Marie and Catherine seemed a million years ago, and Sarah the same, almost as if they were merely a figment of his imagination. His mood dipped when he conjured up a picture of his mother and father, and Ruby of course. There was always Ruby. Most of the Western Front knew about her by now. With a crooked smile he wondered how they might react if they knew she was a horse. For over fourteen months he’d served at the front, yet it seemed like he’d spent the whole of his life immersed in a trench. Chilly fingers began to probe their way into the uncovered crevices of the men’s uniforms to invite a shudder. Winter loomed and threatened.

  It was mid-afternoon when Moses wandered over to where his comrades were sitting. His attitude was languid and he seemed completely bored. “If I spend another day here I’ll die of boredom,” he said, sitting down on a creaking bench.

  “Hey up, lad, here comes bobbing Sergeant Bull looking like a cat that’s just been condemned to drown in a vat of fresh cream,” Atlas said.

  “Private Elkin, follow me, at the double,” the sergeant snapped.

  Thomas pulled himself to his feet. He felt his mouth dry, and his tongue felt as though it were glued to his palate. He paid no attention to the stares and frowns of those around him and dropped in behind Sergeant Bull. There was a rattle in the sergeant’s voice he had never heard before and in the back of his mind knew something was wrong.

  “Something wrong, Sergeant?” he asked in a tinny voice.

  “See the big tent with the automobile outside? Someone’s waiting in there to see you. Best you don’t keep them too long.”

  Thomas clenched his fists. By the entrance to the tent. A military policeman stood at ease. Immediately, his eyes homed in on Thomas’s pale worried face as though he already knew who he was, and his eyes narrowed into a sneering smile.

  “Button up your uniform, Elkin. Colonel Simmons is waiting inside for you. On the double.”

  Thomas felt a stab of coldness bury itself deep into his subconscious. He needed no prodding, already he knew he was about to serve himself up to the law as the murderer of his brother, and that all avenues of escape were slammed shut. The day he had always dreaded had arrived.

  Colonel Simmons was a small man with fine wispy grey hair that moved and bounced with every word he spoke. His face shone pink and his lips were thin and pursed. To some he might appear nondescript. Seated behind a portable table he watched Thomas through large watery eyes that blinked so slowly the movement must surely have left him blinded for a number of seconds. To his right a corporal sat armed with a pencil and notebook ready to take down the proceedings.

  “Thomas Elkin, you are under suspicion of being responsible for the death of your brother, Archibald Elkin, impersonating the said soldier while under-age and being in possession of his uniform. What do you have to say?”

  Thomas heard his own gasp whoosh from his chest and he broke into an uncontrollable fit of coughing, feeling the stretching in the pit of his stomach. He stared into the hazy mass that had once been the colonel’s face, and fear and confusion blurred his eyes and senses. How could they know after all this time, how could they know?

  “There’s must be some mistake, Sir. My name is Archie Elkin. It’s here in my pay-book,” he stuttered.

  Colonel Simmons shrugged. “Bring in Private Davis,” he called to the guard standing outside.

  Thomas forced himself to breathe easily and remain perfectly still, his face impassive. He needed to clear his mind and deal with one thought at a time. Moses’s words echoed through his brain and he grasped at their meaning with both hands. He had witnessed a death but never committed a murder. Now at this moment the words offered no form of solace or peace of mind. The sound of the tent flap drawn to one side shook him from his incumbent thoughts and he turned his head.

  “Do you recognise this man, Private Davis?” Simmons asked.

  “Yes, sir, that’s Thomas Elkin, brother of Archie Elkin. They live just a half mile from my village.”

  “You are absolutely certain?”

  Thomas felt the saliva rise in his mouth and swallowed, the thought of the gallows swayed into his mind. He recognised Jed Davis immediately. The brother of Josie who he’d discovered lying half undressed with Archie in the barn.

  “Yes, sir, that’s Thomas, not Archie, I’m certain. Where is the bastard, Thomas? Ran away like the useless bloody coward he is, eh, and left you to do his dirty work, as usual?” Davis said vehemently. “When I heard the name mentioned I thought it was him. It’s Josie, she’s with child, a daughter, and she says it can only be his. Pa’s put her in a place for unmarried mothers. You tell your brother that when I find him I’ll bloody kill him with my bare hands and feed him to the dogs, you remember that.”

  “That’ll do for the time being, Davis, wait outside,” Simmons snapped, leaning back in his chair waiting for Davis to leave. “Tell me where your brother is, Elkin, and I want the truth!”

  “I don’t know,” Thomas stammered weakly, attempting to gather what little
strength he had left. The response was negligible.

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “When was the last time you saw your parents? I know you have taken home leave twice.”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Can’t remember? For God’s sake, get a grip of your senses, man. How did you obtain your brother’s uniform. Don’t you realise your life is at stake here?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “You are a traitor, Elkin. a traitor to your country and a traitor to your parents. I will ask you one more time, where is your brother? I put it to you that you have killed him and taken his place in an effort to conceal your crime.”

  Thomas’s hands trembled and he felt a rage rise within his chest so strong he thought he might be the victim of lunacy. He told himself he must not lose control, and yet he already had. They wanted him to fall to pieces, to blurt out all he knew and more, to admit to coldblooded murder, and tell them about the pigs and how they ripped his brother’s body to pieces. Fear pierced his guilty conscience and fate held the address of his final destination, the gallows. But although he was innocent, an English court of law must prove him guilty in accordance with the law of the land. Moses had told him so. But why should he die for something as rotten and vile as Archie Elkin?

  “No, Sir, I did not kill my brother,” he said calmly.

  Colonel Simmons sighed, clasped his hands together and rested his elbows on the tabletop. Blinking slowly, his watery eyes settled on Thomas’s face. From records he was aware of the Military Medal that Thomas had won freeing Australian prisoners-of-war and of the sniper company that had helped save countless soldiers from death by German machine-gunners. He held no personal grudge against him, and if anything he would reluctantly admit he admired him. However, his job was to find the truth and nothing could be allowed to interfere with the course of justice. The British constitution respected the rights of every man, and boy, and he would receive a fair hearing in accordance with the enormity of his crime.