Shot at Dawn

by John Wilson

  “Where’s that bloody stretcher?” MacTaggart shouted.

  Ken was conscious and looking round. “I’m going home,” he said.

  “That’s right, sir,” MacTaggart answered.

  “It’s a long walk,” Ken said. His speech was becoming slurred.

  “You won’t have to walk,” MacTaggart said. “There’s a stretcher coming.”

  As if in response, two men appeared round the fire bay carrying a rolled stretcher. With some effort they unrolled it and we managed to get Ken onto it. As the bearers lifted him, Ken looked at me, smiled and said, “I stood up.” Then he was gone, the bearers awkwardly lifting him above their heads to turn corners in the trench.

  The next while was busy. Chris had been brought in farther down the trench, but he was already dead. Bob was assigned to escort the German prisoner back to headquarters.

  I sat on the fire-step, trying to collect my thoughts. I was worried sick about Ken. He might be a coward, but he was still my friend and the wound had looked bad. The chances of infection were high anyway, and who knew what internal damage the bullet had done.

  Then the last thing Ken had said surfaced in my memory. What had he meant by telling me he had stood up? I replayed the scene in no man’s land in my head. Ken hadn’t moved between the first two flares. He had held his frozen position, but then when he was exposed, he had stood up.

  A chill ran up my back as I realized what Ken had done. He had tried to kill himself. He had intended for the Germans to kill him. But why? Had he reached a place of so much terror that he couldn’t stand it anymore? I didn’t know, but the more I replayed the scene, the more certain I became that his action was deliberate. That’s what he had been telling me as he was carried away. Silently, I prayed that he had failed.

  The next morning I received a letter from home telling me what a good harvest it had been that fall and that Becky Bly, a war widow from up the Valley, had married Robert Pritchard, a local businessman, in the biggest wedding the area had seen in years. I got halfway through my mother’s description of Becky’s wedding dress before I crumpled the letter and shoved it into the mud.

  Chapter 8

  Hell

  Near Arras, March 21, 1918

  In the dream I was lying on the hill where I shot the deer. I knew that I had already hit it and should go down and finish it off, but I was paralyzed. The deer, bleeding profusely from my bullet wound in its side and dragging its useless back legs, was coming up the hill towards me, and it wasn’t alone.

  Away from the deer on either side stretched a line composed of every dead soldier I had seen. Most were horribly mutilated, but they kept coming anyway. Even the man whose legs had been blown off by a shell dragged himself towards me at the same relentless pace as the others.

  I didn’t know why they were all coming for me, but I knew that it wasn’t a good reason and that, if I was to have any chance of surviving the war, I had to stop them. I aimed my rifle and fired at each horror in turn, but they kept coming. My bullets hit the mark every time and tore off pieces of flesh and bone, but nothing slowed them down.

  With each shot they came closer and I became more panicked. I felt sweat breaking out all over my body and my breathing became fast and shallow. I had to stop them. I fired steadily and accurately. Oddly, I never had to reload. But nothing worked. The tattered bodies of the dead approached relentlessly.

  The deer in the centre of the line was barely five feet away from me when I woke up gasping for breath. I threw myself out of my funk-hole in a panic and stood in the trench, struggling to calm down. It was still dark but work was going on all around me. Men were moving back and forth, carrying wire and shovels to wherever they were needed. I wasn’t involved because I had been on guard duty earlier and had been allowed a short rest. I wished now that I had volunteered to repair the trench rather than sleep.

  I stood on the fire-step to get out of the way and peered to the east. It was still dark, but I could see the swirls of a thick fog all around. Everything was quiet. I shivered as the sweat cooled on my body. My breathing had calmed and the fear I had woken with dissipated, but the feeling of utter helplessness from the dream lingered. I had to stop that line of dead coming for me and I tried hard to fight them off, but nothing worked. With every dream, the corpses got closer before I woke up. What would happen when they reached me? Would that be a sign that I was going to die?

  The rumours of a coming German attack were stronger now, but no one knew exactly where, and there were no signs that it was imminent here.

  We had arrived the day before, March 20, and taken over a stretch of trench in the so-called Battle Zone. The idea now was no longer to pack the front-line trenches with soldiers and try and hold them to the last man. Barrages had become so heavy that the front-line trenches, and all the men in them, could be wiped out even before an attack started. The new word was “elasticity.” When an attack was expected, only a few soldiers would man the front-line trench, but they would be supported by a number of defensive zones — the Forward Zone, immediately behind the front-line trench; the Battle Zone, a mile or so back; and the Support Zone, another mile behind that.

  Each zone had all the usual barbed wire and deep trenches, but behind that were defensive positions designed to hold out even if cut off and attacked from all sides. The idea was that the Forward Zone would be fairly lightly defended and the enemy would be drawn on into the Battle Zone, where they would be stopped.

  “Couldn’t sleep, eh?”

  I turned to see Bob standing beside me. Good, steadfast, reliable Bob. However much I swore at him and told him to leave me alone, he was always there for me with a pat on the back or a joke. Sometimes it annoyed me, but mostly it helped my mood and I was glad that someone cared, even if I couldn’t bring myself to tell him what was troubling me.

  “No. Too much going on,” I said. “You reckon they’ll attack while we’re here?”

  “No sign of it,” Bob replied, gazing out into the fog. “We’ll only be here for a couple of days and their artillery hasn’t been firing any ranging shots on our guns or trenches, so they can’t be planning a barrage any time soon.”

  “But they will attack eventually?” I asked.

  “Sure. Every day there are more Yanks here and the German prisoners the trench raids bring in are younger and less well fed. They say the blockade of the German ports is really starting to hurt and that the civilians are near starvation. If Gerry doesn’t win the war soon, they never will.

  “I know people say the war will go on into 1919 at least, but I reckon if we can hold off the attack this spring, they might collapse.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Then we can all go home as heroes.” Bob laughed and clapped me on the back.

  “You can,” I said. “You’ve got a medal and plans to see the world and do something with your life. What can I do?”

  “Anything you want. There won’t be any officers to tell you what to do.”

  “I know that, but I left the Nicola Valley to see the world. Mostly all I’ve seen are ruins and the insides of trenches. When I joined up I thought being in the war would be a big adventure, the beginning of a new, exciting life. But it’s not. It’s just boredom, misery and death.”

  “Wow, Allan, what’s eating you?”

  I decided then that I would tell Bob about my dreams. The weight of them was becoming too much to bear and, even if I could bring myself to talk to Ken, for all I knew, he was dead.

  “I’m having these dreams … ” I said.

  I could feel Bob looking at me, but I kept staring to the front.

  “I assume these aren’t about that pretty nurse at the hospital where we were in reserve last week?”

  “No. These are about the dead. Every dead man I’ve ever seen is in them and they are coming for me. Getting closer every dream. I’m scared of what will happen when they reach me.”

  “Jesus,” Bob said softly. “How long have you been having these dreams?�
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  I explained about going deer hunting with Ken.

  “And you’re worried that when they reach you, that will be a sign that you’re going to die?” Bob asked.

  “Yes, but I’m more scared that they mean I’m going to go mad or end up a coward like Ken. I’m terrified of breaking down like he did.”

  Bob was silent for a moment. “You know,” he said eventually, “you called me a hero, but it didn’t take any courage to do what I did. If anything, I was stupid. I didn’t think, I just acted. I would have been much braver if I had realized the dangers and still gone ahead. Remember, Ken has been out here much longer than us. He held it together for three years. Even after his breakdown in that shell hole at Passchendaele, he managed to function for months, organizing and taking responsibility for the whole Company. Perhaps it takes more courage to do that, to just keep going when you know you’re falling apart, than it does to do one spectacular thing.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, “but he broke down completely in the end. He was deliberately trying to kill himself when he stood up on that raid.”

  “Maybe bravery isn’t enough. Maybe everybody has a limit, and when you reach that, no matter how brave you might be, your mind and your body simply say ‘Enough.’ They take over and do whatever they can to get you out of that situation.”

  I was thinking about what Bob had said when Sergeant MacTaggart came up.

  “Come on, lads. There’s plenty work to be done before it gets light.”

  I had turned to get off the fire-step when Bob said, “What do you suppose that means?”

  I twisted back in the direction he was looking, to see a single white flare arcing into the dark sky above the fog.

  “A signal,” MacTaggart said. “Not a good sign.”

  The flash came first. As far as we could see in either direction, the horizon lit up brightly enough to show through the fog. Then came the sound.

  In every other artillery barrage I had been through, it had been possible to distinguish individual guns, the deep snarl of the heavy howitzers and the higher-pitched howl of the smaller field guns and mortars. This morning there was just one sudden, overwhelming roar, as if the very earth were tearing itself apart.

  We should have ducked down, but the awesome magnitude of what we were seeing and hearing froze us in place. I barely had time for the odd thought that this sounded like a huge avalanche coming towards us when the British Forward Zone exploded. It was about two thousand yards away from us and we could see no details through the fog, but the simultaneous arrival of hundreds of tons of high explosives, shrapnel and gas shells was breathtaking.

  Even at that distance, the ground shook so hard that we instinctively grabbed onto the trench wall. The flashes of the high explosives through the fog looked like a lightning storm over the horizon and vast gouts of flame and columns of earth rose into the sky everywhere. The fog took on a greenish tinge from the poison gas.

  “Those poor sods,” MacTaggart said.

  It took me a moment to realize that he was talking about the British soldiers cowering beneath the storm we were witnessing.

  “Why aren’t they shelling us?” Bob asked.

  “They will, lad,” MacTaggart said. “Ye can be sure of that. As soon as they’re done with those boys, it’ll be our turn.”

  The thought that we would have to go through the hell we were witnessing sent a shudder of fear right through me. My stomach felt as though it had turned to water and my legs twitched as if they wanted to start running.

  “What can we do?” I asked.

  “When the time comes, get yer head down and pray.”

  “MacTaggart!”

  I looked over to see the lieutenant coming down the trench. “Get the men into the bottom of the trench with their gas helmets ready, and set sentries to watch for an attack.”

  “Aye, sir.” MacTaggart saluted and addressed us. “You heard the officer. Get down there and if I find any of you without yer gas helmet, you’ll wish the Gerries had found you first.”

  We sat on the fire-step, hugging our gas helmets and rifles, and waited as the ground shook below us and the sky roared above. Countless German shells formed a canopy over us as they roared towards our guns, communications and headquarters.

  The waiting was the worst. I sat for what I thought was an hour, only to look at my watch and see that less than five minutes had passed. Perhaps I didn’t have to wait for the dead of my dreams to reach me. Perhaps the dream I had just had was the signal that I was about to die. My imagination began to get out of hand. I saw ugly black pieces of metal fly through the air towards me and felt them tear off my arms and legs and punch great gaping holes in my chest and stomach. I was overcome with an almost uncontrollable desire to run, anywhere to get away from here.

  “After this is all over — ” I felt Bob’s comforting hand on my shoulder “ — the war, I mean. Why don’t we stick together and see a bit of the world that’s not the back wall of a muddy trench?”

  I looked round at Bob. Was he serious? Was he really talking about a time after this?

  “Of course, I’d insist that we go to Paris first,” he said with a smile. “That’s my dream and I claim priority, but I’ll let you have second choice. Where shall we go after we tire of the mam’zelles of the Moulin Rouge?”

  I stared at him. It took me a long time to work out what he was saying, but he waited and nodded encouragement.

  “Spain,” I said eventually. “I read a book once about the Moors and Granada. The palace there is one of the wonders of the world.”

  “Spain it is then, Allan. Then it’ll be my turn again. I think we should head over to Egypt after that. I’ve always had a yearning to see the pyramids.” Bob poked me in the ribs with his elbow. “I wonder if the Egyptian women are all as beautiful as that Nefertiti?”

  “Probably not,” I said, so seriously that Bob burst out laughing. It was an effort to concentrate, but his conversation was giving me something other than the shelling and my dreams to focus on.

  I was trying to think of somewhere we could go after Egypt when I realized that the barrage had stopped. Hundreds of shells were still flying overhead and bursting to our rear, but the pounding of the Forward Zone had ceased.

  “Are they going to attack?” I asked, panic flooding through me.

  “Quiet,” MacTaggart ordered.

  At first I couldn’t hear anything other than the distant explosions, but I gradually began to make out a soft popping noise closer by. I was about to ask if anyone else could hear it when MacTaggart stood up.

  “Gas, lads,” he shouted. “Put on yer helmets. Now!”

  We fumbled for our cumbersome respirators as MacTaggart stood beating out a warning on the empty shell casing that was hung outside the dugout entrance. Behind him I could see a thicker wall of fog rolling towards us down the trench. A figure was just visible inside the cloud, staggering from side to side and clutching his throat.

  The mournful clang of MacTaggart’s gas alarm echoed while I struggled into my helmet. My eyes were watering and the sharp metallic taste of the gas was catching at the back of my throat by the time I had the helmet in place. Suddenly I was cut off from the world around me. I could still hear the explosions, but they were muffled and my vision was limited to a cloudy area directly ahead of me. I felt trapped and had a strong urge to vomit.

  Bob tapped my shoulder and gave me a thumbs-up. As I returned the gesture I noticed that my hand was shaking.

  There was no bright flash to announce the new barrage, simply an ear-splitting roar that enveloped us all instantly. It was like being in the eye of a hurricane; all around us was chaos and destruction. I couldn’t even think.

  Shells were landing all along the barbed-wire entanglements in front of the trench, throwing up great fountains of earth, shattered wooden stakes and chaotic tangles of wire. Other, heavier guns were targeting the fortified strongpoints behind us. It was as if God were angry with the earth itself and had determi
ned that nothing was to be allowed to live on it. And yet, deep in our trench, we were safe from all but a direct hit.

  Instinctively we huddled down as low as possible in the bottom of the trench as the ground heaved and clods of earth fell off the trench walls and flew through the air.

  How long that second barrage lasted I have no idea. It seemed like weeks. The sound was a physical presence — a hammer beating constantly inside my head. I was an animal, nothing more, numb and helpless, watching my left hand shake and wondering vaguely who it belonged to. After a while a nursery rhyme from my childhood, “Baa Baa Black Sheep,” began to run endlessly round my head. I think I screamed it out loud into my mask.

  The need to vomit was almost irresistible. I must have inhaled more gas than I thought. I was suffocating. I wanted more than anything to rip my gas helmet off. A tiny rational part of my brain knew that I had to keep the helmet on, but my terror was close to making me rip it off. I was breathing dangerously fast, yet everything seemed to be happening in slow motion.

  I looked around wildly. The masked figures crowded on the floor of the trench didn’t even look human. We were a herd of animals with squat snouts and wide, staring glass eyes, huddled in a poisonous, swirling fog, waiting for some vast predator to come and feed on us.

  Only MacTaggart, recognizable by the sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve, was on his feet, moving back and forth along the trench, checking that gas helmets were secure and encouraging the men. He bent down, patted Bob on the shoulder and gave me a thumbs-up.

  As he straightened up, a shell exploded on the parapet. Whether it was the force of the blast or a piece of shrapnel, I have no idea, but MacTaggart’s head disappeared. There was a red haze. Then, suddenly, there was only the torn remnants of his neck, and blood pouring down his uniform. The body stood for an incredibly long time, as if trying to decide what to do, then slowly sat down on the trench floor with its back resting against the parados.