Beyond the Horizon

by Peter Watt

  ‘Sergeant Duffy, based on my personal knowledge of your contribution to the battalion, and that of Corporal Smithers’s reputation as well . . . Also based on the purely circumstantial and inconclusive statements of witnesses, and the rather strong support from your own officers and RSM Pink, I am not going to concur with the adjutant. Instead, I am going to recommend that you return to your role as platoon sergeant under Mr Sullivan. I am going to initiate an investigation into the possibility that Corporal Smithers’s wound was self-inflicted. I am sure that the adjutant will nominate a suitable investigating officer in that matter. That is all, RSM. You can march Sergeant Duffy out and return him to his platoon duties.’

  Tom felt as though his legs really would give way under him now.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the RSM barked, snapping a smart salute and delivering new commands at the top of his voice to Tom to salute, turn about and quick march from the office. As he left, Tom caught a glimpse of the adjutant. He looked stunned.

  The door was immediately closed behind him and Tom felt the heavy weight of the investigation fall from his shoulders.

  ‘Well done, Tom,’ the RSM said quietly and accompanied the goodwill with one of his rare smiles. ‘The CO knew what he was doing, and when I get my hands on that maggot, Smithers, he will wish he were dead.’

  ‘You know I never shot him,’ Tom said.

  ‘I knew that,’ the RSM replied. ‘Wouldn’t have put in a good word to the CO if I didn’t think you were innocent, would I?’

  ‘Thanks, sir,’ Tom said. ‘It’ll be good to be back with Mr Sullivan and the boys. I’ve missed them.’

  ‘Well, Sergeant Duffy,’ the RSM said, returning to his gruff demeanour, ‘if I find any of the gas masks you passed as fit today are faulty, I will have your guts for garters.’

  Tom grinned. ‘Thanks again, sir,’ he said and turned to march away.

  He was welcomed back into the platoon with broad smiles and slaps on the back.

  ‘The boys are glad to have you back,’ Dan Frogan said.

  ‘Despite the fact I’m a blackfella,’ Tom replied with wry smile.

  ‘They don’t see you as anything but a bloody good NCO. The men trust your judgement and courage, and don’t you forget that,’ Dan said fiercely.

  ‘Sorry, Dan,’ Tom replied contritely. ‘It really is good to be back.’

  ‘We go up tomorrow morning,’ Dan said, changing the subject. ‘Mr Sullivan wants to have a briefing with you in half an hour at platoon HQ.’

  Tom nodded and stared off across the fields. They were pitted here and there by craters caused by German long-range artillery attempting to disrupt the rear-echelon areas. The firing had been random and the battalion was lucky enough to escape its effects. Not so a small herd of cows that had scored a direct hit and now lay swelling black under the summer sun.

  Tom was seriously worried about Juliet’s silence. He wished he could seek emergency leave to visit her but he knew that it would not be granted because the battalion was about to move up into the front lines. Even if he were to be granted leave, he didn’t want to let down his cobbers. Tom reflected on the fact that he thought of the men as cobbers. Back in Queensland he would have not gained the same respect from the Europeans he came into contact with, but in hell, race had little meaning, and men only judged you on your ability to keep them alive. Heaven was returning to Australia with Juliet as his bride, but he was concerned that he would always be labelled as a blackfella and looked down on by the whites. If only they knew he was wealthier than half of Queensland put together, Tom thought with a savage satisfaction. Maybe wealth would wipe the smirks from their faces.

  With a sigh, Tom rose and made his way to the platoon HQ for the briefing. He found Lieutenant Sullivan squatting over a map.

  ‘Sergeant Duffy reporting, sir,’ Tom said.

  Sullivan glanced up and broke into a broad smile. ‘Welcome back, Sergeant Duffy,’ he said and rose to extend his hand. ‘We have missed your company.’

  Tom accepted the outstretched hand. ‘Good to be back, boss.’

  ‘Pull up some grass,’ Sullivan said, resuming his position hovering over the map marked with many lines in red, black and blue indicating trench systems and terrain.

  Tom squatted over the map and both men stared at the picture it presented. ‘At 0100 we move out to our positions here,’ Sullivan said, using the mouthpiece of his pipe to point to the position on the map. ‘We take this route,’ he indicated it with his pipe, ‘and we have to be in position before first light.’

  Tom nodded. As the senior NCO his secondary role was to assume command if the platoon commander was in some way put out of action. He therefore had to be aware of the tactical situation as if he were in command himself.

  Sullivan glanced at him. ‘Thought you might like to know that Corporal Smithers has been listed as AWOL from the hospital. He up and left when he was informed that there was going to be an investigation concerning his possible self-inflicted gunshot wound.’

  Tom was not surprised that the man had deserted. Despite his intimidating size and vicious nature, the man was a coward.

  ‘At least it’s a chance to promote Lance Corporal Paddy Bourke to command his section. What do you think of that idea?’

  ‘Bloody good decision,’ Tom replied. ‘Paddy has proved his worth many times.’

  ‘Good,’ Sullivan said, returning his attention to the map. ‘I’ll call him up and present him with his stripes after dinner tonight, when the platoon is assembled. I just wanted to hear what you thought, before making the decision.’

  Three days later the men of the battalion knew they had walked once again through the gates of hell. This time they were joined by an American infantry regiment receiving its blooding among the Australian veterans.

  They were welcomed to the front with shelling by the dreaded German 4.2 and 5.9 artillery guns firing high explosives. The shelling commenced around midnight and Tom’s platoon bunkered down in their newly dug trench as the heavy artillery rounds slammed into the earth, exploding with a force that made the ground tremble like a wounded animal. With clods of dirt showering down, Tom wondered if Wallarie was correct in saying the earth was alive, because the wounding by the German shells seemed to be proving him right.

  Tom wondered how the young and inexperienced Americans were coping with their first exposure to the most feared aspect of trench warfare. Just waiting, praying that a shell did not explode close enough to do serious damage, stretched nerves beyond breaking. Not all artillery explosions resulted in mutilated bodies; Tom had seen bodies of soldiers without a mark on them – they had been killed by the concussive effect of the artillery blast. The massive force of compressed air produced by a shell going off could cause irreparable internal damage, although the main cause of death was mostly from the red-hot jagged fragments of metal cast off by the artillery round breaking up. Or the lead balls sprayed out from shells exploding overhead for maximum damage.

  Tom had his eyes closed and could feel the terrible fear rise up in him. Each exploding round caused his whole body to twitch in expectation of agonising death. He forced himself to remain crouched and not to give in to the urge to jump up screaming and run away from an enemy he could not fight back against. Tom knew the terror he was experiencing was being felt right along the line of trenches.

  For a moment he opened his eyes and could see Lieutenant Sullivan curled up with his arms around his head, trembling with each crash and thump of the earth. Time lost all meaning and Tom closed his eyes again in an attempt to bring Juliet’s face and smile into his world of terror. But this did not work: all he could think of was not being killed or maimed by the explosions.

  Suddenly he felt his whole body lifted a few inches off the bottom of the trench as a huge round impacted at the edge of the trench only yards away. Tom knew it was a German 5.9 centimetre shell because he recognised its incoming sound.

  Men screamed and shouted, and when Tom opened his eyes he could see
that the section of trench beside him had collapsed inwards, burying alive anyone who had been beneath the lip of the trenches. Without hesitation, Tom snatched an entrenching shovel and scrambled on his hands and knees to the freshly cut earth of the trench. He was joined by Lieutenant Sullivan and two other soldiers who used tin helmets and their hands to dig furiously into the pile of earth. The shelling continued but Tom no longer had time to reflect on his own fear. None of them said a word as they grunted and gasped, digging through dirt until a leg appeared.

  ‘Grab it and pull like buggery,’ Tom yelled above the crashing noise. Mike Sullivan grabbed the booted ankle and he and Tom yanked with all their strength. The leg came out easily and Mike Sullivan fell back, gripping a man’s leg cut off by shrapnel above the knee. For a brief moment he sat on his rear holding the leg and staring at it with glazed eyes.

  ‘Keep digging!’ Tom screamed and the men went back to their desperate task. One of the great fears of all soldiers on both sides was being buried alive by cave-ins like this.

  They dug until they found the rest of the body and dragged Private Dean from the earth. He was barely alive and rolled on his back to stare up at the summer stars. Then he started retching, bringing up his last meal along with dirt and bile.

  ‘Private Dean,’ Tom yelled down at the badly wounded soldier. ‘Who was beside you?’

  Private Dean blinked and mumbled something.

  Tom leaned over and put his ear to Dean’s mouth. ‘Who?’

  ‘Bluey,’ Dean whispered and Tom turned away. ‘Stretcher-bearers,’ he bellowed, hoping that his call would not be drowned out by the tremendous noise of the exploding shells.

  They were now joined by men from the other side of the destroyed earthworks and the frantic digging continued until they found Bluey. They were too late. He had suffocated under the heavy pressure of the earth. Tom looked away, not feeling anything, and he noticed that the shelling had tapered away and the sun was casting its first pink light on the horizon.

  The stretcher-bearers arrived to find that Private Dean’s leg stump had been tied off with a tourniquet and he was still alive. Tom had completed his roll call of the platoon: they had suffered one KIA and one WIA. He reported to Sullivan, who had also moved up and down the platoon sections to check on the welfare of the men. He was a good officer and, despite his own terror of the bombardment, had been able to retain an outward appearance of calm, talking quietly to the men, all of whom had been badly shaken by the experience.

  Tom had ensured that the men’s minds were on maintaining equipment and preparing for any assault that might follow the bombardment, although he doubted this would happen. He had come to sense the difference between German harassment shelling meant to unnerve them, and preparatory shelling intended to soften a position before an attack. The early morning bombardment had been a routine harassment shelling.

  When Tom reached Private Dean lying on a stretcher alone, he squatted to speak reassuringly with the man.

  ‘You got a Blighty there, son,’ Tom said referring to a wound that would ensure the soldier was sent to England for treatment – and out of the trenches for good.

  ‘Sarge, there’s something I have to tell you,’ Dean said, reaching up and gripping Tom’s sleeve. The morphine had kicked in and Dean had the dreamy look of a man not quite in the real world.

  ‘What’s that?’ Tom said.

  ‘Bluey, before he got it,’ Dean said in a voice that seemed to come from a long way away. ‘He told me that Smithers told him that after we were on leave he went to your lady’s cottage and had his way with her. I didn’t want to say anything but now Bluey is gone I suppose you should know the truth. Smithers said she had a strawberry birthmark on her arse.’

  Tom felt the blood drain from his whole body. Only someone with intimate knowledge of Juliet could have known of her small birthmark on the cheek of her well-rounded buttock. Raped! Tom now felt an overwhelming urge to leap from the trench and run as fast as he could until he reached Juliet’s farm. Then he would hunt down Smithers and kill him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sarge,’ Dean said as the stretcher-bearers returned to take him on the first leg of his long journey back to England.

  Tom barely noticed him go; all his thoughts were of murder and grief. Maybe Juliet had been badly hurt and could not write, Tom thought. There would be a reckoning, he vowed. But first he must go to Juliet, no matter what.

  The cobbled street was crowded with troops mostly in the uniform of the French army. The pretty young girl stood hesitantly before the doors of the stone building. She gripped a small suitcase containing the few articles she had put together before fleeing her village in shame.

  Juliet Joubert caught the attention of one or two soldiers ambling past the houses and the offers were blatant. Money for sex was the norm in this section of Paris known for its brothels catering to soldiers on leave. The French army had suffered terribly in the big battles and the year before had actually mutinied for better conditions. Fortunately the mutiny had not been known about by the German intelligence or they might have launched another attack and won the war.

  Juliet had travelled a long way and her meagre savings were almost gone. She felt such shame that she had not been able to write to Tom, nor had she been able to tell her parents what had happened, although they had known there was something wrong with her. For over a month she had continued teaching in an almost trancelike state; then she had found herself suffering nausea and vomiting. She had understood that she was pregnant, and the terrible realisation came to her that she could not know whose child she was carrying.

  It had been an agony for her, so one night she’d packed her small suitcase and left her parents’ cottage without leaving a note. All that had been in her mind was that the man she loved would shun her, and without Tom life had no meaning. In her despair she thought she was not fit to be Tom’s wife if the child she carried was not his.

  Knowing that she had very little money to keep her going, Juliet had decided to take a cleaner’s job in a relatively respectable brothel for gentlemen and officers. The thought of working in such a place sickened her but it was all she could find. She walked up the steps to the brothel’s large double front and rang the bell. In a couple of minutes the door swung open to reveal the outline of a large man wearing a stylish suit and hat. Juliet and the man stared at each other and the young woman blinked in horror, while the man also appeared to be taken aback at the sight of her standing forlornly on the step.

  ‘Well, I’ll be buggered,’ Smithers said, a broad smile crossing his face. ‘So you couldn’t keep away from me, eh? Of all the places you had to come to in Paris it had to be Madame Leclerc’s. Come in, and I suppose you are wondering how I got here,’ Smithers continued, opening the door wide. ‘Me and the army decided to have a parting and it just happened that when I got to town Madame Leclerc was looking for someone who spoke English and could handle rowdy customers. So here I am – and here you are.’

  Juliet was frozen with fear and disbelief. She was in the presence of evil and the devil had come to fetch her soul.

  12

  The sun was at its blazing zenith as Saul Rosenblum and Joanne Barrington lay on their stomachs side by side, observing the Turkish patrol halting for a rest. From their viewpoint on the hill they calculated that the Turks were about a half-mile away. Joanne scanned the campsite with her binoculars in an attempt to locate Matthew. As her small rescue team had tracked the patrol over the last three weeks their supplies had dwindled, and she knew that if an attempt was not made in the next twenty-four hours they would be forced to withdraw.

  ‘I can see him!’ Joanne exclaimed. ‘There, standing to the rear of the camel train.’

  Saul swung his binoculars to the rear of the convoy and caught sight of his friend swigging from a leather water bottle. For days and weeks they had kept a course parallel with the patrol, always out of sight but close enough to carefully observe the military routine of the patrol. Saul had calc
ulated that they had the task of reconnoitring for British units on the Ottoman flank. Had this not been the case, the patrol would most probably be back in its fortified base by now and any attempt to rescue Matthew would have been impossible.

  The time observing the enemy unit had given Saul a good idea of numbers, weapons and tactics. He had noted that the patrol had grown slack in the last few days – maybe because they were comfortable in territory nominally held by them – and the sentries posted on the flanks were now being pulled in closer.

  ‘Twenty-three men armed with carbines and no sign of any machine-guns,’ Saul had briefed that morning. ‘I think they are suffering a shortage of supplies like us, so that means they will be expecting to reach a depot very soon. If we are to make our move it will have to be tonight – or at first light tomorrow. I notice that they seem to be preoccupied with breakfast lately and not keeping a good lookout. I would prefer first light when we have a clear view of Matthew, so he does not get caught in any crossfire. Our Maxim will even the odds considerably.’

  All four of them had agreed with the plan as they had the high ground and surprise on their side. Now they just needed a lot of luck.

  As they lay on the bare hill top observing the patrol, Benjamin hissed at his father. ‘Do you hear that?’

  Saul lowered the glasses and strained to hear any strange sound that stood out from the usual noises of the arid lands. And then he heard it. A low droning noise approaching from the south.

  ‘Aircraft!’ he said and turned to locate the source of the droning that was growing louder by the second. They all spotted the little biplane flying low at around a thousand feet, and Saul brought up his binoculars to identify it.

  ‘British,’ he said. ‘Bloody hell! It must be going after the Turks!’

  Joanne glanced at Saul and they both registered their horror as the British aircraft was already lining up the Turks, now wisely scattering in all directions, leaving their camels to mill about in panic.