This could be his only opportunity.
Without giving himself time to over-think things, Harry broke cover, running diagonally in the direction of the German patrol. Stooping low, he chambered another round into his Enfield as he went.
He almost tripped over the first body, the stormtrooper’s dark uniform melting into the mud and darkness. He was lying face-up, arms outstretched at his sides almost as if he had been cut down in the act of making a snow angel. He had been shot in the face, probably by Sarge’s Vickers gun, the large calibre bullets obliterating most of the man’s skull. The one remaining eye was still open and glazed over.
A few yards away lay the other Hun, this one lying on his side. He wasn’t moving, but Harry wasn’t taking any chances. Shooting from the hip, he put another bullet into the prone body, seeing it spasm from the impact then ran through with his bayonet, gritting his teeth as the blade sank into the enemy’s flesh.
Two Germans down. Best case scenario, that left one more, and possibly a dog. The other faction of the patrol could be anywhere, possibly even circling around to attack their position from the rear this very moment. Harry and Sarge had to move. Get back to their lines, or at least find somewhere to regroup, and they had to do it quickly.
Chapter V:
Caught Between Two Worlds
Harry was relieved to find Sarge badly wounded, but alive. Slinging his Enfield over his shoulder, he gripped his companion and pulled him to his feet, which was no easy task as the man must weigh eighteen stones or more, and half-dragged, half-carried him away from the jutting outcrop of gnarled tree stumps and down a slight gradient. It didn't matter where they went, anywhere else would do. Their position had been compromised. The Huns would be coming. Hopefully, the dense concoction of ground mist, smoke and darkness would provide enough cover for them to escape.
They stumbled and fell once, then twice, the second time Harry's foot catching on a protruding tree root. Each time they hit the deck it took longer to get Sarge back on his feet. He was mumbling incoherently, the entire right side of his uniform stained black with blood. They made another few yards and fell again. This time, Harry was just too exhausted to get back up right away. Looking furtively behind them, eyes boring holes through the darkness, he saw no sign of any stormtroopers. Assuming there were any left. All the time they were running, he and Sarge would have been sitting ducks for any Huns on their trail, yet nobody had fired at them.
They must have put a couple of hundred yards between themselves and the skirmish site. But in which direction? With no navigating equipment and no landmarks, it was impossible to gauge their position. They were hopelessly lost in the one place a man didn't want to be lost.
During one of the falls, Harry had dropped his Enfield and failed to pick it back up. He knew that was a cardinal sin, but he simply couldn't carry everything. When faced with the dilemma he chose to take Sarge and the Vickers gun. Mainly because the damn thing was strapped to his chest and it would have eaten up valuable time trying to unfasten it. As advantageous as having the machine-gun was in certain situations, this wasn’t one of them. Harry knew the basics, but had never been trained in its use. That was Sarge's department, and it didn't seem as if he was going to be able to use the it for a while. Not even Sarge could manage that in his condition.
A cursory examination revealed that he had been shot twice. Once through the right arm, and once in the shoulder, the German bullets ripping his flesh and muscle to shreds. There was also a wound to the side of his neck, which steadily oozed blood. It was hard to tell which of the injuries was the more serious. One thing Harry knew for sure was that if he didn't do something, Sarge was going to bleed to death right in front of him.
Working quickly, Harry cut off a piece of his webbing, ripped open Sarge's tunic, and used the webbing as a makeshift tourniquet to try to stem the flow of blood. Then he opened the first-aid kit he had brought, and pulled out a tiny vial of morphine. The old soldier hid it well, but Sarge must have been in agony. He didn't scream once, but Harry could see that the man had bitten through his own tongue with the effort of not doing so. Blood streamed through his open lips and dripped down his chin, adding to his already-ghastly appearance.
The morphine helped, but Sarge was in a bad way. In his pain and drug-fuelled delirium, Harry wasn't even sure if he knew where he was. His eyelids kept fluttering, and his eye balls darting around in their sockets. He certainly wasn't capable of combat, or even making rational decisions, and there would be no moving him again for a while. They would have to dig in here until first light, then perhaps Harry would be able to get a handle on their position and figure out some way of getting them back to their trench. He guessed dawn would be breaking in three to four hours. He just had to stay alert and keep himself and Sarge alive until then. “No problem,” he whispered aloud. “No problem at all.”
Despite the night chill, Harry stripped off his webbing, took off his overcoat and placed it over his wounded NCO, who lay shivering in the foetal position, semi-conscious. There was nothing else he could do. Now it was up to Sarge to last through the night.
The place where they had come to rest appeared to be in another bomb crater, this one more shallow and dryer than the last, thank God. It was just deep enough to camouflage their body shapes and keep off the worst of the chilly breeze. Harry discovered that if he lay on his side in the crater and positioned the Vickers on the edge, it made for a comfortable firing platform. As long as the enemy approached from the direction it was facing. Manoeuvrability would be an issue, with the machine-gun being so big and heavy.
After seeing to Sarge's wounds, Harry scavenged together the remnants of their supplies and ammunition, which didn't amount to very much. They had only one-and-a-half belts of ammo for the Vickers. Around four hundred bullets. Probably less. Either they had dropped some en route, or Sarge just didn't bring much with him. The whole point of this exercise was to travel light, which didn't lend itself well to lugging a huge machine-gun with stacks of ammo around. Harry could imagine the inner conflict Sarge must have put himself through when deciding whether to take the heavy machine or a rifle. He had obviously decided on the fire-power, perhaps knowing on a subliminal level that he would need it.
In addition to the Vickers, Sarge also carried a service revolver in a holster hanging from his belt. That was better for close-quarters fighting, and would be easier for him to use, given the extent of his injuries. It was fully loaded, but Harry couldn’t find any extra bullets. And then there was a dagger each. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
Just as he was settling in for a long wait, the unearthly howl came again, instantly turning his blood to ice and making the hairs stand up on the nape of his neck. This time, the animal was close. It must have followed their scent, or the trail of blood, and would no-doubt lead any remaining German troopers right to them.
There could be no more running or hiding. Harry decided then and there that he would rather die making a stand, than go down in the act of running away. He was too exhausted and battle-weary. Besides, Sarge was in no condition to get very far, and Harry couldn't leave him behind.
The cards had been dealt. He glanced at his NCO, and was both surprised and relieved to see Sarge sitting up, looking alert and holding his service revolver at the ready. He, too, must have heard the howl and feared another imminent attack. For a brief moment, their eyes locked across the few feet of boggy marsh that separated them, and Harry could see the despair and disappointment written all over Sarge's face. He noted with admiration that he saw no fear.
With the Sarge seemingly able to cover the rear, Harry peered down the thick barrel of the Vickers gun into the darkness, his finger lightly caressing the trigger.
He heard it approaching before he could see it.
Or was it just his imagination?
No, surely not. He could hear its grunts and snorts, and the padding of thick paws on the earth as it bounded across the battlefield toward t
hem. The dog was too close to the ground to see, partially obscured by mist, and Harry couldn’t pick out its form. He had no target to aim at.
Silently, he debated whether to go ahead and fire off a few rounds into the general vicinity. He might get lucky and hit the target, or the roar of the gun might be enough to scare the dog away. But the downside was that he would waste precious ammunition, and whatever happened, their position would be compromised again. A solitary muzzle flash, would be enough for the trained eye. In fact, the sole reason for the Germans turning the dog loose could be to spook him into doing just that.
Could they really be so cold and calculating?
Of course they could.
A combat situation was no place for doubt. If there was one thing Harry had learned during basic training and his time on the Front, it was that any action taken should be swift and decisive. Indecision was a killer. You wait, you die. His finger tensed on the trigger as his eyes searched the empty darkness.
The shot took him by surprise. It was close, but sounded very different to the large-calibre weaponry most commonly favoured by men at war. A small, almost insignificant-sounding POP! Not unlike the sound made by a child's toy cap gun. The noise was followed by a smooth click, then another POP!
Sarge with his service revolver.
Harry whirled around, fully expecting to find the Sarge locked in a mortal battle. But instead Harry's gaze was met by the sight of Sarge, half-slumped in the shallow crater, smoking pistol still in hand, and a look of utter confusion painted on his face.
“Sarge, did you see something?”
No reply.
“What are you shooting at? Sarge?”
“I... I'm not sure,” stammered the NCO. “Maybe just a shadow. Maybe nothing at all.”
Maybe nothing at all? That made absolutely no sense. Harry knew Sarge wouldn't have fired his weapon unless there was a dire need, especially given their perilous situation and lack of ammo. His faculties may have been adversely affected by the loss of blood, or maybe he just wasn't thinking straight, mistaking shadows for lurking enemies.
But Harry knew Sarge, and at that moment, he knew something had put the fear of God into him. Harry was about to press the issue when he remembered the rapidly approaching dog and quickly turned back to his firing position.
Too late.
A huge black shape was already flying through the air toward him. It seemed to fill his vision with its bulk, and it was all Harry could do to raise an arm to protect his face, knowing that all he was achieving was serving up one of his limbs on a plate. He screamed as the creature's fangs sank deep into the flesh of his forearm, slicing through his tunic as if it were tissue paper.
He was on his back in the shallow bomb cater, the sheer weight of the animal pressing him into the mud as it chewed at his arm, ripping skin and flesh and crunching bone. The pain was excruciating. It felt as if he had his arm trapped in a vice. A vice with teeth and claws. The creature was trying to get to his throat, and was so close to his face now that Harry could feel its hot, fetid breath on his face. At this range he could see into the animals eyes, and what he saw was fury. Unbridled, ferocious rage.
As he struggled for his life, out of the corner of his eye Harry saw a figure come striding confidently toward them. Now, it was no more than a few yards away. The man, whoever he was, looked absolutely enormous. So big that his mere outline silhouetted against the swirling white mist was too intimidating for words. Harry couldn’t identify the figure's dark battle dress, but assumed the stranger was a member of the German patrol. A stormtrooper. In the flesh.
Everything seemed to be happening at once, yet events were unfolding so slowly that it was almost as if the drama were being played-out under water. In his heightened state of awareness, everything suddenly made sense to Harry. If the German patrol knew Sarge was already wounded and hardly able to defend himself, of course they would send in the dog. His wounded comrade would be unable to offer any help, and the result would be two wounded, soon-to-be-dead soldiers rather than one.
The dog growled and shook its head viciously from side to side. Something inside Harry's arm splintered and broke. If he didn't free himself soon this beast would chew right it. Regaining his composure slightly, he tried to block out the pain and concentrated his efforts into making one huge thrusting, jerking movement with the entire top half of his body in the hope of bucking the thing off him.
It didn't work. The dog seemed to be anticipating the move, and loosened its grip on his arm just long enough to reposition its body weight, glaring at Harry with that unquenchable fury. Those eyes...
There was a shot from Sarge's revolver.
POP!
Then another.
POP!
Harry didn't know whether Sarge was shooting at the dog or the approaching stormtrooper, but he hoped it was the dog. He couldn't miss from that range. However, he may decide the stormtrooper posed a more real threat and wouldn't want to waste bullets on a dog, perhaps hoping the sound alone would be enough to scare off the animal. Whatever the case, the dog's ferocious assault not only continued, but intensified.
Harry tried to scream but couldn't find the breath in his lungs to do so. In desperation he lashed out, aiming for the twin set of orbs set deep in the dog's head. His fingers found something soft and wet, and instinctively he pushed. There was a little resistance, then his right finger penetrated something with the consistency of warm jelly. The dog let out a howl of pain and surprise, then released its powerful jaws and ran off whimpering, rubbing at it’s face with a meaty paw.
Despite the excruciating pain in his forearm and the soul-sapping sensation of his lifeblood seeping out of him into the mud, for a few moments Harry was too stunned to move. He took in huge gulps of tainted air and waited for the greyness to stop encroaching on his vision. Then he remembered something.
The stormtrooper.
His eyes snapped open to find the huge, hulking figure towering over him. In contrast to the British khaki and brown uniform, the stormtrooper wore a combination of black and grey, no doubt as much to instil fear in the enemy as to camouflage him during its nocturnal excursions. His face was obscured by a helmet and gas mask, the apparatus giving him an eerie, inhuman appearance, almost as if he were a visitor from another planet, or a renegade from some other dimension.
From it’s elevated position, the stormtrooper coldly regarded Harry and Sarge, head slightly cocked to one side as if in curiosity. As Harry watched, Sarge, who had the service revolver trained on the stormtrooper, let off another shot.
POP!
From a distance of just a couple of feet, the bullet ripped into the stormtroopers belly, the impact forcing him to take a step backwards as if he had been shoved.
But he didn't fall.
How could that be? A point blank shot to the gut like that would be enough to send any man to the floor screaming in agony. Was he equipped with some kind of body armour?
Sarge seemed just as confused, incomprehension written all over his pale face. He looked at the revolver and turned it over in a visibly shaking hand, as if questioning its authenticity. Just then the stormtrooper let out what could have been a malicious laugh, and opened up with two Mausers, one in each hand. Until then, Harry had only ever heard stories about one of the most feared of battlefield weapons. A machine-gun the size of a pistol? It was another of those things that nobody was sure really existed or not. When dozens of bullets tore into Sarge, throwing him onto his back where he lay, jerking violently under the lead onslaught, the Mauser’s validity was proven beyond doubt.
Harry's already-fragile mind couldn't process what had just happened. Then, pushing the pain and anguish to one side, he scrambled for the Vickers, fully expecting his body to be duly ravaged the German bullets at any moment. His hands closed around the thick stock of the weapon and picked it up, grunting with the effort. Even as he brought it around, supporting its weight with his mutilated left forearm,
his finger found the trigger.
The staccato thunder split the night in two, the muzzle flash illuminating the area immediately around him. The recoil made his arm spasm and drove the butt of the gun painfully into his shoulder.
But the space on the lip of the crater the stormtrooper had occupied was now empty. He was gone.
Fearing the enemy must have somehow skirted around him, Harry flung himself onto his back inside the crater, spraying bullets in a wide arc as he went, the manoeuvre intended to be both defensive and offensive. Somebody screamed, the sound barely audible above the roar of the machine gun. It might have been him.
Then the firing pin clicked. The ammunition belt had run empty. Harry lay still amid the billowing clouds of machine gun smoke for a few seconds with the weapon weighing heavy across his chest, unsure of what to do next. Seeing and hearing nothing, he pushed the heavy machine-gun away. There was no time to reload. Not now.
Whenever he heard the Dead Man's Click he was reminded of something his drill sergeant had been fond of saying in training. “An empty gun is about as much use as a walking stick.”
Harry’s hand immediately went to his belt and unsheathed his dagger, wild eyes trying to scan every direction at once. He knew the knife was a poor answer to any kind of firearm. Especially the Hun’s twin Mausers. But for the moment it was the only answer he had.
The stormtrooper, along with the Hell Hound, if that was what it was, had vanished.
One look at Sarge told Harry there was no helping him this time. His upper body had been racked with huge bullet holes, and a grimace frozen onto his face. He was no longer breathing. Immediately, the despair and a sense of loss hit Harry. Another good man cut down in his prime in this senseless tragedy of a war. At that moment he had never felt so alone in his entire life.
Chapter VI:
Enter the Hell Hounds
No Man's Land Page 5
