The silence in the absence of weapon fire didn’t last long, as almost as soon as they were over the parapet a machine gun opened fire from a German trench. From their new aeroplane reconnaissance they had known that it was there, but the officers had chosen to draw it out, while a section had the express orders of attacking it direct. That didn’t go too well for them as a direct assault was akin to suicide. George watched as the guns traversed their way and the bodies fell. A trench mortar fell close by and the first of the guns was silenced. It wouldn’t be for long, but it would buy them precious time to get closer to the enemy trenches. There was a wall of noise that they were assaulting into, walking across no man’s land with an arrogance that lacked fear. Explosions threw up mud and dirt everywhere, and rifle rounds whistled past. The assault was breaking in parts, as some men began to run towards the enemy and others ducked for cover. Their fine order was becoming a mess, and the weight of opposing firepower wasn’t helping.
As it had done on every previous occasion, their training seemed to go out the window. There was no order to this madness of war, and the officers seldom had any time to think or react to the changing situations that they were presented with. They just had to advance and hope that everything would come together as planned. This time, as usual, it wasn’t coming together.
George moved across no man’s land, keeping as low as possible. His pace was a little more than a walk, but not a run. He didn’t want to get too far ahead of his comrades, that way lay disaster, but he also didn’t want to fall too far behind. They would need his help and moving too slow made it easy work for the snipers and machine gunners. It was also hot wearing khaki at this time of year, even if it was early morning.
The Germans had known they were coming. They would have spotted their aeroplanes, and also used their own to see the training that the men were doing behind the front line. As soon as the British artillery had stopped and the assault had begun in earnest, the Germans had opened up with everything they had.
Still, the British advanced, hoping that by sheer weight of numbers alone they would overpower the German defenders.
Tom moved alongside George keeping low and ready. The rest of their section was scattered around the debris of no man’s land around them, picking their way through the mud and bodies. Men fell every few seconds, dropping into the early morning darkness, and no one stopped to check them. To do so would be suicide. The machine guns stopped every few seconds to reload or cool down, and the attackers would use this opportunity to push further forward.
A whizz-bang landed a few metres away from them with a loud crack. Mud flew everywhere and George’s vision was covered with wet brown. His ears stung from the noise and he could feel the pressure pressing in against his brain. He banged his knees as he fell, and he cried out, but couldn’t hear his own voice.
When his senses cleared he found that he had fallen into a shell hole, or ditch in the ground. It was deep enough for a man to crouch in without putting his head over the edge. He couldn’t work out how he had avoided being hit by that shell, it was so close, but he seemed unharmed, except for the headache he now had. Tom had been by his side. He searched with desperation, hoping to find Tom’s reassuring grin, to see him jump up and lead them to safety as he had always imagined. There was no grin.
Neither was there heroism. Instead Tom sat deeper down in the shell hole staring back into the middle ground – at what, only Tom could tell. His eyes were unfocused and distant and his face was set hard in determination. For once, George couldn’t tell what was going through his friend’s mind. Tom had grabbed hold of George’s arm in the fall but didn’t seem to have noticed, he just stared at whatever world his mind had placed him in. It took a hard shove from George to get him moving.
‘Huh, what?’ he said, as if waking up from a deep dream.
George punched him on the arm, with a quick jab.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Now’s not the time for lying around. There’s a war on.’ He tried to imitate the Sergeant’s Scottish accent, but it was no good. He tried a grin but was sure it was more of a grimace. ‘The Germans are over there and we should be after them. We’re dropping behind the rest of our boys.’
Tom still didn’t move, he just stared at George, as if looking straight through him. Then after a few seconds he swallowed and smiled at George. It wasn’t his usual grin, much more forced, like a grimace, but it was a start.
‘You’re right, of course, George. I was just, er… in a world of my own.’
Tom reached out a hand to help George up and over the crater’s edge. Together they helped each other out of the trench, using the other for support. Once out of the crater they leaned forward on their bellies so that they could crawl forward.
George didn’t dare look at the quagmire that had become of the land between the two trenches. He feared he might spot friends amongst the dead. He felt Tom shuffle up beside him, breathing slow breaths near his ear.
‘We’ll have to stand up if we want to get at the enemy, lad,’ he whispered. There was a wobble in his voice, like when speaking the first words of the morning.
The artillery was still falling over no man’s land. The wind was blowing some shells wide, but George suspected that the main reason they were falling short was due to the lack of accuracy of the guns. They were supposed to be moving forward to cut the German wire and take out any machine gun nests, but they were just falling all over, clods of dirt and sometimes body parts flying up into the air. It was difficult to see just what was going on.
The artillery drifted over their section again, and George pushed his head down into the dirt. After a series of deafening explosions, he raised it again to assess the situation, and to find the rest of his section.
The Sergeant reared up in front of him.
‘What do you two think you’re bloody doing?’ he shouted over the din of battle, standing before them like a god, the early morning sunrise lighting his features.
‘Wondering which way is forward, sir.’
‘Don’t give me that bloody cheek, Abbott. I’d expect it of Adams, but not from you.’
He reached down and helped haul George to his feet. The sounds of warfare were still around them; machine guns coughed every few seconds, and the combined shells of both sides flew back and forth. George wasn’t sure that it was safe to stand, but he didn’t have much choice. He squatted down behind a barbed wire fence, waiting for the Sergeant’s orders.
The Sergeant reached down to help Tom up. Tom took his time to accept the Sergeant’s hand and worked his way up onto one knee.
At that moment there was a crack, like the sound of breaking wood. And then the landscape burst into bright white light as the Germans sent up a Very light. The Sergeant pushed Tom back down as bullets whistled their way.
The Germans had spotted them. He could hear each round thumping into wood or plinking off metal. One grazed the top of his steel helmet and dazed him.
He could make out the muzzle flash of a machine gun spinning their way. The bullets traversed across the ground. Somehow George could see them hitting the ground; they looked like pebbles skimming off the surface of a lake.
He heard the thuds first, then turned to look at the Sergeant. His body wracked and danced with each blow. In a fraction of a second, George was up and leaping at the Sergeant. He hit him around the waist like a rugby tackle, and together they rolled into the shell crater that George had left only seconds before.
Tom crawled in after them, scrabbling after the Sergeant.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ he said repeatedly.
He rolled over the Sergeant, who was now covered head to toe in dirt. Blood was pouring through two exit wounds in his chest. The bullets had managed to miss his heart, and he was still conscious, but the blood was bright red.
He gritted his teeth and moaned in pain. George tore some cloth from a pocket in his webbing and pushed it against one of the wounds, trying to stop to flow of blood. It wouldn’t clot, and the Se
rgeant was losing a lot of blood.
‘Don’t, it’s no bloody use,’ the Sergeant coughed. Blood rimmed his lips.
‘We have to try something, sir. To stop the bleeding and get you back to our lines.’
The Sergeant tried to shake his head and failed. Instead he grabbed hold of George’s hands and held them together.
‘You make sure you survive this bloody war, Abbott. You hear me?’ An iron grip took hold of his smock seam and pulled him down closer. He could smell the Sergeant’s breath, tinged with the iron of blood. ‘You bloody hear me?’
‘Yes, sir,’ he whispered.
‘Truth is, sir…’ He hesitated for a moment before continuing. ‘I always got the impression that you hated me, sir.’ He was trying to take the Sergeant’s attention off his wounds and keep him talking.
‘You’re a bloody idiot, Abbott.’ Even bleeding out in the bottom of this shell hole, the Sergeant’s will was relentless. He glared at George through the pain of his wounds.
‘I was trying to teach you Abbott. To be a good soldier.’ He coughed again and went silent for a few seconds. George thought he was gone, but then he spoke again.
‘I needed to be harsh on you. Otherwise you wouldn’t have lasted a minute out here. I knew what we were up against. You lot had no idea. You were all bloody civvies. But I always had faith in you.’
The Sergeant’s face wavered in George’s vision. His eyes had watered up, and he blinked them dry. The hand holding George’s smock eased off and dropped to the Sergeant’s chest. Without thinking, George moved back in respect.
Tom pawed at the Sergeant’s wounds. It was no use.
‘Don’t, Tom,’ George said. He saw the desperation in his friend’s face. He felt it too, but he had seen enough death now to know what it looked like. He knew the smell of iron and blood well enough.
‘He’s gone.’
‘He saved my bloody life. He can’t be.’ Tom breathed deep, sucking in great lungfuls of air in shock, and sobbed. His face was covered with the Sergeant’s blood, bright red, as if he had been painting. He sat back in the trench and put a hand to his mouth.
George stuck his head up, looking for any sign of the enemy, and trying to decide what their next step should be. He moved closer to Tom to talk to him, edging forward on his knees as the khaki scratched at his skin.
Tom’s eyes shot over his shoulder and back at the signs of fighting in front of him. He was like a caged animal looking for an escape route. His gaze wouldn’t stay still, his eyes kept moving away. He didn’t even seem to see George crouched next to him in the shell hole.
‘We have to find a way forward,’ George said, almost unable to hear his own voice.
Tom didn’t respond, and George wasn’t sure if he hadn’t been heard or if Tom was ignoring him. He repeated himself and still nothing. Tom kept turning his head. At one point he looked straight at George, but his eyes were unfocused, they didn’t register George, but seemed to stare straight through him at some unknown vision.
George gave his friend a friendly punch on the arm, trying to drag him out of his reverie. Tom started at the punch and fell back into the shell hole, cowering. His eyes darted from side to side for some threat, despite being surrounded by them. George leaned closer to catch Tom’s gaze, but he just stared right through him as if he wasn’t there.
Tom’s hand relaxed and the rifle slid out of it, easing down into the bottom of the shell hole, where the mud sucked it up.
‘Tom, your rifle,’ George shouted over the din. Tom didn’t answer. He didn’t even seem to hear George’s words. He would be brought up on a charge for losing his rifle, but if they stayed in the shell hole much longer they would come under enemy fire, or worse.
George tried to raise Tom out of it, grabbing both his arms below the shoulder and shaking him as vigorously as he dared. Tom roared, pushing him back. George almost tumbled into the muddy bottom of the shell hole. He stood up on his haunches.
‘No. No. No,’ Tom said, shaking his head.
His fight or flight instinct kicked in. He pushed George again, forcing him out of his way and climbed to the top of the shell crater. He didn’t stop there.
‘Tom, what are you bloody doing?’ George called after his friend, unprepared to leave the relative safety of the crater. ‘Get back here!’
Tom didn’t turn, he didn’t stop. He climbed out into no man’s land and started running. He dodged the explosions around him like an athlete, dodging this way and that. George shouted after him, but he disappeared into the distance out of sight.
George kneeled there, mud coating his khaki. He was in shock. Tom had always been there for him, and now he had gone. Just like that. In a way it was worse than the others. At least they had had no choice in the matter. Tom had upped and left of his own accord, without even a thought for George. He looked up. The specks of dirt and debris in the air fell on his face like raindrops.
He had to decide what to do. He could either press the assault on his own, hoping that some of the others had made it to the German trench and he could support them. Or he would have to return to his own trench and face the consequences.
He looked around. He was so very alone. No man’s land was littered with corpses and the debris of the last two years of war. The Sergeant still lay where he fell, staring at George as if in judgement of his decision. There was no way George could continue on his own. His section had been decimated. He was the only one left. They had come all the way from Liverpool together. The only way he could honour their memory was by surviving. He would have to return to the trench, there was nothing for it. He picked himself up, not noticing the mud that slid off his khaki. He picked up both his and Tom’s rifles in his blood-drenched hands and climbed to the top of the shell crater.
As quick as he could manage, he jogged off back in the direction of his own trench.
Chapter 31
He was sitting in the front room of his house when they came for him. Anne sat next to him and held his hand. She hadn’t said anything in minutes as they had both descended into silence, expecting the inevitable. Joe had been living in fear ever since the tribunal, knowing that he had no choice but to do anything except what they told him to do. He had not been made an exception of, and he was answerable to the law. He suspected that they hadn’t even read the appeal that he had spent hours crafting when he was supposed to be working at the newspaper.
He had known they would send for him soon. It had taken longer that he had expected, and a cruel streak in him suspected that they were toying with him, punishing him further by making him wait.
In his left hand he clutched a piece of paper, crumpled by his semi-clenched fist. In his other he held on to Anne. She should be working but had refused to leave him. The piece of paper was his enlistment papers, ordering him to report to the Knowsley Park barracks for training.
He was supposed to have reported on Monday. It was now Tuesday, and like every other conscientious objector who had refused military service, he fully expected them to send the police round to arrest him. It was, after all, the law.
A black shape moved past the front window, casting a shadow in the front room, and there was a knock on the door. Joe started in his seat, even though he had been expecting the knock. Anne tried to soothe him, but he jumped up in agitation. There came another polite knock on the door, perhaps thinking that the first hadn’t been heard, but how could it not have been?
Joe walked out to the hallway and opened the door. A young, but well-presented policeman stood on the threshold. Joe had met him before, in his work for the newspaper, but he couldn’t recall his name in his worried state. He cursed himself; he was normally so good with names.
‘Hello, Joseph,’ the policeman said. There was a sullen look on his face. ‘I’m here to take you in, I’m afraid. I’m sure you know why.’
Joe nodded.
‘Just give me a minute please,’ he said.
The policeman didn’t respond, he just turned awa
y and stepped down the street.
Anne was by Joe’s side, and he pulled her close. He breathed her in, not knowing when he would smell her, or feel her warmth again. He held the hug as long as he dared, unsure of when the policeman would interrupt them. He could wait, Joe decided.
‘I will come back soon,’ he said. ‘They can’t force me to be a soldier and they cannot keep me against my will.’
He could feel her gently sobbing against his chest.
‘I know,’ she said between breaths, ‘I know.’
The policeman coughed politely, and Joe let go of Anne. He used a thumb to wipe a tear from her eye and smiled at her even though he didn’t feel it.
‘I have to go now.’
He kissed her, with more force than perhaps he had intended, but she didn’t pull back. As soon as they stopped kissing he felt an absence, an absence he didn’t think he would ever be able to fill.
As he stepped out of the house, the policeman grabbed him by the back of the arm and started leading him down the street.
‘You don’t need to do that. I won’t run away.’
‘Fair enough.’
He let go, and they walked the rest of the way in silence, the policeman’s heavy boots clicking on the cobbled streets. It struck Joe as strange. Here were the streets that he would walk on his way to work, and here he was being led down them to a place he didn’t want to go. How much things had changed in these past few months. The horses and carts still clattered past, but the streets were much emptier. There were no men of his age, only the elderly.
The people he passed, some of whom he knew well, looked at him with barely contained hatred. He could feel them all judging him as he went. A women spat at him, and he wiped the spit from his eye with the back of a hand. The policeman didn’t step in to stop their jeers. What could he do? They were treating him as if he were a murderer, as if he had committed some more heinous crime than simply refusing to harm his fellow man.
Goodbye for Now Page 30
