My Father, My Son

by Sheelagh Kelly

  After a time he pressed himself from the ground and wandered off, if not to be alone, at least to gain short respite from Dobson’s prattling. Soon he became aware that someone was walking beside him, not having to look to know it was Jack, for the corner of his eye had shown someone very tall.

  They strode without speech for a while, then Daw said, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any pliers on you, Filb?’

  Russ glanced up then; saw the pain-racked face. ‘Oh Christ, it’s not that same bloody tooth that was bothering you back home, is it?’ With Daw’s sheepish admittance he asked, ‘Why the hell didn’t you have it seen to?’

  ‘I can’t!’ Pain heightened the tone of Jack’s reply.

  ‘What – not even by the dentist here? Well, don’t expect me to do it. Tell you what, I know where there’s a Jerry sniper. Stick your head up and he’ll put a nice little plug o’ lead in it… mindst I can’t guarantee he’ll leave your head behind.’

  ‘Some bloody friend you are,’ muttered Daw.

  ‘I can’t understand you, Jack – what’s the difference between me pulling it out and a dentist? I mean surely it’d be less painful if he did it, him having all the right stuff.’

  Daw found difficulty in explaining it himself. ‘I just have a sort of… thing against ’em.’

  ‘You’ll end up having to go.’

  ‘Thank you for your help, Sergeant. If I’m still around tomorrow I might think about it.’ Jack strode away.

  Later, using the darkness as a screen against the German observation balloons, they moved to forward trenches, stopping at an RE dump to draw extra equipment. Due to all movement having to be done under cover of night, the roads to and from the trenches were thronged with traffic of every description, creating a scene similar to that when the chocolate-bashers at home broke up for the evening. But all normality dispersed when they passed Basin Wood. Here a pioneer battalion had dug a vast communal grave in preparation for the morrow. The sight produced as big a hollow in Russ’ stomach.

  By the early hours of the morning they were in position. Now, as he sat and waited for the dawn, Sergeant Russ Hazelwood surrendered to his earlier decision to write a letter. Even in the confidence that this was to be a decisive battle, in realistic terms there would be men who died today. Russ could be one of them. His indelible pencil scrawled a note in similar vein to all the others he had sent her, begging her forgiveness, telling her how much he loved her and the children. When it was done he tucked it into his Army pay book. If he were still alive this evening he could rip it up. If not… then someone else would send it.

  Dawn broke to the most beautiful clear blue sky. Russ must have been napping, for he seemed to remember that a moment ago it had been dark. His insensible eyes told him, at first, that he was lying on his back in the middle of Knavesmire… then his sense of smell brought him fully awake to the reality and, stretching, he heaved himself upright. The gunners were still in good form with a ponk, a scream and a bang! Yet amidst all this there rose the sound of birdsong. Russ identified a lark. Looking up, he could see it hovering above the battlefield, trilling its heart out. The silliest thoughts came when one was preparing to lock with the enemy: would the lark still be alive by eventide? Would the nightingale get to speak? And how many hundreds of tiny mammals would have been annihilated on these green acres when the battle was won?

  In the hour before the attack, the new company commander gave last-minute orders and the rum ration was doled out. Then the men sat back, lit cigarettes and chatted. ‘D’you think Fritz might’ve gone, Sarg?’

  ‘Why, if it isn’t Private Dobson!’ exclaimed Russ on finding the boy next to him. ‘What a fine young fellow you are – just stand there while I rip the hairs out of your nostrils. Dobson, do you seriously imagine I’d be stood here if Fritz had buggered off?’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t seem to be chucking much at us, Sarg.’

  ‘It’s just as bloody well, isn’t it? Get that tin helmet on! What d’you think they gave it you for – to piss in?’

  ‘It’s uncomfy, Sarg,’ grumbled the lad.

  ‘As uncomfy as a hole in the head? Get it on!’

  Dobson did as he was told, then scanned No Man’s Land, the more distant part of it veiled in gun smoke. ‘Can’t see anything moving out there.’

  ‘There’s going to be something moving very shortly, Private.’ Daw had strolled up unnoticed. He now consulted his watch. ‘In ten minutes’ time, to be precise. We’re going to push that Hun all the way back into his mother’s womb.’ Russ saw that there was no pain on the lieutenant’s face this morning – the tooth had obviously had a liberal dousing of rum.

  Dobson waited until Daw had gone past, then said, ‘D’you know what they’ve nicknamed the lieutenant, Sarg? The Ice Man. Nowt seems to scare him, does it?’

  Russ laughed inwardly at the thought of Jack’s dental problems. ‘They’ve got a nickname for you an’ all, so I heard, Dobbo – The Rapist.’ He ran a derogatory eye up and down the other. ‘Mindst… it’s only an honorary title.’ Poor Dobson had tried his utmost to lose his virginity but none of the women he met would take him seriously.

  Shortly the barrage from their artillery lifted, signalling that the first wave of infantry was about to go over. Sergeant Hazelwood’s battalion was to be in the second wave, its objective to make for any gaps that the gunners had blown in the German wire and press on for the enemy’s second line. After receiving such a pounding it was doubtful that Jerry would offer much resistance. There was great confidence all alone the line.

  Somewhere a whistle was blown and the first wave poured from their trenches, whilst Russ and his fellows waited for their turn to come. The delay produced the usual nerves. Though each man tried his best to hide it, the fear emanated from him in a peculiar smell. Not so much fear of dying, but that he would make a fool of himself in front of his comrades. Their anxiety was transmitted to their eyes. While their mouths laughed and joked, their eyes belied their true feelings. The only one who did not need to make false banter was Daw. Russ glanced at him and wondered what the other was thinking. Jack seemed totally unaffected by what lay ahead, cool as ever. Daw, cigarette halfway to mouth, caught his neighbour’s inspection, and winked through the tobacco smoke. Russ gave a half smile and turned his eyes back to the parapet – then flinched as the grass growing there was meticulously scythed away in a rattle of machine-gun bullets. As usual to staunch his nerves he leant on humour. ‘Dobbo, you’re always cracking on you need a shave, just stick your chin on that ledge.’

  The sun rose higher. Russ gave his platoon orders, ‘Any man who isn’t into position in two seconds flat will be severely shot.’ D Company cowered in their slit of earth, trying not to listen to the cacophony of battle and wondering how it was progressing. There were, too, thoughts of their families at home. And then Lieutenant Daw had a whistle poised at his lips. His other hand cradled a watch. In one swift second the timepiece was returned to his pocket and the whistle shrilled in perfect unison with others along the line. ‘At ’em, lads!’ Daw withdrew his revolver and began to scale the ladder, as did Captains Dench and Reed, Lieutenants Pugh, Slater and Carr – those who were second in command had been left behind to rebuild the battalion should any of these others fall. Their men followed under the weights of full packs, some falling back dead the moment their heads poked over the rim.

  And what a diabolical sight was to greet them – far from bridging the enemy’s first line, their predecessors had never reached the German wire. Hundreds of them carpeted No Man’s Land, their blood and brains soaking into the ravaged earth. This stark reality gave the men of D Company the impulse to fall, play dead, but the instinct not to let the side down overpowered their fear. The entire battalion set off at a walk, towards the trench that their first wave had vacated. The distance seemed vast.

  Already, only yards from their own burrow, men were beginning to keel over, but Daw led his section onwards through the yellow bursts of shrapnel, his revolver
ever-flaming. The staff-planners, supremely confident that the German lines would be breached easily, had ordered each platoon to carry rolls of barbed wire, shovels and picks and mallets on top of normal packs, for strengthening their new positions. Before the front line trench was reached, however, these were already being discarded as their bearers were hit.

  Russ stepped over a wounded Lewis gunner, knowing that to stop and help would bring punishment. He shouted to two men to pick up the gun and strode on, rifle at the port. All around him men pitched forward and were still. Some, wounded but still able to walk, staggered back towards him, grinning ruefully, fingers clutching blood-sodden tunics. Down went the captain of A Company, followed by Lieutenants Pugh and Carr. The ground kept erupting beneath their feet, hurling them high into the air on black geysers of earth – and then suddenly, row upon row were toppling like skittles as the German machine-guns broke into fresh voice. Momentarily distracted by the carnage, Daw faltered and instantly fell wounded, slithering down into a shell-hole which was already the grave of several men. But the small rent in his arm was not enough to incapacitate him and he dragged himself forward, yelling to his men who, seeing him drop, had come to a standstill.

  Russ shouted too, weaving his way in and out of the dead. The ground was now an obstacle course of debris: gas masks, water bottles, rifles, boots… with the legs still in them, rolls of wire, tin hats. They were in reach of their own front trench now. Daw ordered his section into it to regroup and found it crammed with hundreds of fearful faces who, their officers gone, looked at him for instruction. Gasping for breath, Russ surveyed their predicament. Literally piles of their fellows lay before the German wire, some draped over it like crows hung up by the gamekeeper to scare away other vermin, cut down as they had tried to find the supposed gaps made by their artillery pals. Shells burst around their position, rendering them deaf and light-headed. Russ waited for Daw to say they should pull back as other sections were doing. Amazingly, Daw ordered them over the top and forward. Dobson couldn’t believe such a foolhardly action. ‘Christ, he’s a bloody sadist!’

  Russ shoved him out of the trench. ‘I don’t care what religion he is, if he says fight we fight!’

  A dash of thirty yards and their own barbed-wire defences were breached. The men had abandoned their leisurely pace now, scampering from crater to crater which pocked the devastated landscape. By inches, they made their way towards the enemy barbed wire, their number growing fewer by the second. The man to Hazelwood’s left went down. He was wearing a yellow armband to show he carried wire cutters. Russ squatted to his haunches and took possession of the cutters, then ran on. His lungs were beginning to ache; a sequel of the gas.

  Quite by chance, Daw found a section of enemy wire that was almost undefended. Russ attacked the spiked coils with the cutters and dragged the strands apart – though this was by no means easy as the belt of wire was extremely dense.

  All the while he was hacking and snipping the wire, Russ expected to see his own blood spurting from his breast. But safer here than the gaps prepared by the artillery, for in front of these lay hundreds of dead. Daw kept his eye on the German machine-gunners who were concentrating on these gaps, bringing down the Allies who were like sitting ducks. ‘Christ,’ he muttered to Russ. ‘Bring on the orange sauce.’

  The final wire was snipped. Once through, Lieutenant Daw charged for the trenches as if at the head of a thousand men. A German machine-gunner spotted the small group’s infiltration and began to enfilade. Simultaneously, there was an explosion. When the huge fountain of earth finally came to rest, Daw fell with it. Russ, finding himself in charge, had no option but to proceed with the attack. Miraculously, Dobson was still at his side, cheering – despite the order not to do so – but his voice was highly pitched. There came another vicious burst of staccato. Dobson grunted and doubled over, tipping forward on his chin with his bottom sticking in the air. Russ heard his cry, knew he should go on, but instead went back and dragged the wounded boy down into a shell-hole. With no one to drive them on, the rest took cover.

  Dobson was whimpering, a look of puzzlement on his face. His intestines, like unravelled wool, were looped around his bloodied fingers which scrabbled to return them to their rightful place. He kept gathering them together and stuffing them in, but they kept popping out again, glistening red and grey in the sunshine. At first, shock acted as anaesthesia, but now the pain came in one savage rush. The boy’s scream was a mixture of disbelief and affrontery. ‘Mam!’

  Hazelwood was rummaging madly in Dobson’s pack, looking for his field dressing. ‘All right, lad! Mother’ll look after you.’ When his frenzied hands found the dressing and presented it to the wound he saw it was pathetically inadequate. Dobson shrieked incessantly. A panicked Russ shouted, ‘Chin up, Dobson! Knit one, purl one…’ Dobson died.

  For the moment the roar of battle disappeared – then was eclipsed by Hazelwood’s own cry of rage as he charged from the shell-hole, bayonet levelled at the enemy, screeching his intention. The rest of the attackers streaked after him.

  He withdrew a bomb, hurled it, fell flat as the ground blew up, then ran on. Then, somehow, he was upon the machine-gun post, despatching the concussed and wounded with a meaningful jab of his blade. As the rest of D Company thudded up behind him he was already swinging the machine-gun round to face the Germans. In another second he began to strafe. Someone appeared at his elbow but he was too crazed to notice who, he just wanted to kill.

  ‘Well done, Filbert lad!’ Daw seemed indestructible. The fall he had taken was not as a result of a bullet but the explosion, which had knocked him over. Here he was, stunned and sleeve dripping blood but still in command. Once more he led the men on the enemy, hurling bombs and everything available.

  They reached the pulverized section of trench and jumped in to confront the terrified survivors. ‘Kamerad!’ A weapon was dropped and hands raised. Daw pretended to have trouble with his vision. ‘Here, hold this gun, Sergeant. I’ve got something in my eye.’ Russ emptied the last of Daw’s bullets into the dismayed young German. Daw recovered his sight. He veered round a bend, came across a dugout and tossed in his final bomb, pressing himself against the breastworks. There was a dull thump and smoke poured from the dugout. The men ran on.

  Russ, still wild for vengeance, lunged with his bayonet at all he encountered. Daw, his gun empty, pulled a nail-studded club from his pack and used it for crushing skulls. Those who had been about to surrender saw that they were to be granted no mercy. They made for a communication trench, the British in pursuit. A shell burst nearby, wiping out yet more of Daw’s small army. The rest chased the fleeing enemy until the Germans began a counter attack and forced them back from whence they came. Valiantly, Russ and the others fought to hang on to the ground they had captured, but with no more bombs were compelled to stumble backwards and leap for No Man’s Land. With enemy fire to all sides, they made for a huge crater and dived into it.

  From here, Daw panted for someone to volunteer as a runner. A young lance-corporal was selected and, with all the chance of a grouse on the Glorious Twelfth, set out for his own lines. The ten remaining were forced to lie sick, wounded and paralysed with terror for twelve hours until – aware that there was to be no assistance – they could use the darkness to make the return to their own lines. All day they lay in the hot sun, battered, bruised, half-crazed with the sights they had seen and made crazier by the constant bombardment from their own side. When finally darkness came, Lieutenant Daw gave the order to move off. This was enacted with temerity, the men dragging themselves on their bellies for the greater part of the way. It was not easy; they found that every yard of ground was covered by a body.

  * * *

  Rowena spread the evening newspaper on the floor, back page uppermost, and read out loud the headlines, summary to her daily report of the war. ‘Great British Offensive Begins. Attack Opened This Morning. 16 Miles Of Trenches Stormed By Our Troops. Many Prisoners In Our Hands.’ She looke
d up, brown eyes sparkling. ‘It must be nearly over now. We’re really giving Fritz a pounding.’ Though it wasn’t just the battle which made her so radiant; she had just heard that she had passed her scholarship exam and would start the new term at the Municipal Secondary School for Girls. Her mother had been overjoyed, for she had anticipated failure after so much school disruption, and she was now busy cutting out new dresses to mark Rowena’s achievement. It was nice to see Mother smiling for once. The tips of Rowena’s long hair caressed the page as she knelt over it to read the rest, her narrative punctuated with ‘Valour, victory, progress, Germans punished, massive advances…’

  The others clapped and cheered as their sister related tales of derring-do. ‘I wonder if Bertie’s taking part?’ said Becky after the final paragraph had been read.

  Lyn uttered a groan. ‘Oh God, I hope not! He’ll be strutting around and boasting for all he’s worth when he comes home.’

  ‘Give him his due,’ reproved Charlie. ‘It must be very scary to be shot at – he’s got guts.’

  ‘That’s what I say!’ Becky leapt up. ‘And I’m going to make him a medal, Father as well. Has anybody got any silver paper?’

  Charlie said he would find a bit from somewhere. ‘Wena, does it say how many Boches were killed?’

  She consulted the paper again. ‘Can’t see anything… hey!’ She touched a speculative finger to her lips. ‘I wonder what they’ll do with all those dead Germans?’

  ‘Make them into sausages,’ riposted Lyn, and they all broke into giggles.

  * * *

  Only in the morning was the true carnage apparent. Flags of truce were raised in order for both sides to sweep up their ghastly litter. Russ was one of the survivors who waded out into the morass of No Man’s Land to bring back the dead and wounded. The sight which loomed through the pall of gun smoke was like nothing he had seen before. Yesterday’s trees stood raped and mutilated, every leaf gone, branches splintered. Hardly a blade of grass was to be found. The earth looked as if it had been at the mercy of some drunken ploughman, violated by shell-holes so numerous that in many places they ran into each other, some so deep they gave the impression of going right down to hell.