by Thomas Wood
It was likely, now that the Germans knew we had taken a battering, that they would be attacking us before too long, and it really wouldn’t take them too much to break through our lines and send us back to our original frontline of the day before. We really had been through it the last day or so.
I wondered if we were to be immediately rotated off the frontline, or if we would have to wait for the reinforcements to arrive. Either way, I hope they didn’t call five platoon into action anytime soon, as there was only two of us left now.
Bob locked eyes with me and managed to give a hopeful, tinted with forlorn, smile. His teeth were scarlet red.
15
The young captain who stood before me, the three pips on his wrist denoting his rank were as crystal clear as his face was. The difference between this man and everyone else in the trench, was the distinct lack of blood and dirt, that seemed to plague every other poor soul that had collapsed in the trench.
Bob passed another cigarette to me, which I took without a thanks or acknowledgement, as the captain continued to stare down at the two bundles of dirt and blood that were threatening to soil his pristine uniform.
“Sergeant George Needs?”
“Dead.”
“Acting Corporal Samuel Beattie?”
“Dead.”
“Private Herb—”
“Look mate, we’ve told you, we’re the only ones left in five platoon. Robert Sargent and Andrew Ellis. Can’t you just leave us be?”
The young officer looked his list up and down, scribbling away at names as we confirmed which ones had been taken from us and who we hadn’t seen go down. In actual fact, we had seen more or less everyone killed, or at the very least, about to die. It wasn’t a particularly difficult task for us to recall all of their circumstances, they were etched upon our minds.
Bob and I had no idea where to go; even if we’d had the energy to go somewhere, we would simply be forced into wandering aimlessly around, until someone picked us up. I felt totally helpless, and more than a little bit lost.
No one seemed willing to tell us to be in any one place in particular, only getting us to shuffle up and down the trench, to make way for another stretcher case, that would more than likely be another fatal in the next twenty minutes or so.
Neither of us wanted to move and, in the absence of having anyone directly superior to us, we settled in the trench that we had taken twenty-four hours previously, intending to smoke ourselves to death.
We had no one to tell us what to do; no platoon sergeant, no platoon commander and the last time we had even seen our company commander, half his face had been hanging off. Even if he lived, he would have been in no fit state to continue to order us around, especially when he had had the time to calm down and realise he was in an incredible pain.
For a moment, I found myself wondering if any of the officers in the entire division had survived, or whether they had all somehow sacrificed themselves for the good of their men.
Bob Sargent and I, were something of divisional vagabonds and there was no way that we were going to risk being shot for falling back to somewhere where we shouldn’t have, so we decided we would stay put, until we were forced out of our resting place and hopefully onto somewhere a great deal more comfortable.
The medics of the Royal Army Medical Corps were doing a sterling job, as they tirelessly made their way up and down the trench, tending to the individual men’s needs, without stopping for so much as a sip of water themselves.
They did what they could, making men comfortable and ensuring that they were warm, before taking the very same blankets and placing it over the corpses once they had slipped into an eternal slumber.
They were caked head to toe in blood and for a moment I wondered if one of them had been hit himself, judging by the flow of blood that dripped from the end of his chin, but he moved so quickly I didn’t have time to work it out.
The Padre was making his way around all of the wounded, fulfilling his duties as both a spiritual guide, but also taking his turn in propping men up for a drink and also bandaging up their wounds. He was a man that I had greatly admired, as he had spent a lot of time with our section, especially as he had been the only man that Etwell had seemed to talk to without raising his voice at.
I wondered for a moment if I should tell the chaplain that the bloke who he had helped to write letters, was now dismembered a few hundred yards from where we were, but decided against it, more out of a fear for what he might do in trying to recover the body, than for his own morale.
For the first time since I had met him some two weeks before, I noticed that the Padre was rather old, far older than any of the other boys in the trenches by a long shot. He must have been in his early forties.
I wondered for a moment about his family and if he had one waiting for him back in Britain. I wondered what his wife and children would have made of the notion of him going to France, particularly at an age and an occupation where he could quite easily have avoided the entire show.
I respected him even more as the thought slowly began to dwindle from my mind.
The dull thuds of artillery in the distance, shortly followed by the excitable gasps over our heads as the shells began to retaliate against our invisible enemy, began to grow more and more frequent, until the air was so full of them that it was the only thing that could encompass my thoughts.
I hated the Germans, more than I ever had done before; they had killed a lot of my friends and obliterated a great many more of my extended comrades. But still, as those shells rocketed their way towards wherever they were hiding, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them.
No one deserved to be on the end of a barrage such as that one, the blackened sky above us owing to the sheer amount of ordnance that ripped through the clouds and descended upon them like vultures.
In between the shrieking of artillery shells, I thought I could make someone out shouting. Looking over at Bob, he had heard it too and was already making moves to begin stubbing his cigarette out on the trench floor, to go with all the other stubs that we had tossed down there over the last hour or so.
After a while and a few more shrieks of artillery, a captain, one that I had never seen before, but who had clearly been in the advance, appeared from around the corner of the trench.
His arm was in a sling, the dirtied piece of cloth that was keeping his arm up stained with a large roundel of blood just below his elbow.
He copped both Bob and me sitting there, and began to announce to the whole trench, above the din, what must have been our first orders from an officer since five o’clock this morning.
“All walking wounded are to fall back. We’re going back to our original lines. You’ll meet up with reinforcements there to expect a German counter attack. From there you can await your orders from your respective regiments.”
I sighed as I looked across at Bob, who already had two ciggies poking from his lips as he lit them. He shrugged at me as he passed me one, raising his eyebrows theatrically.
“What can you do?” he declared, almost chipperly, as if he had put the events of the morning behind him already.
Nothing. There was nothing we could do. We had always been cannon fodder, and I was certain that this war would carry on until not a single man was left alive on this continent.
Reaching to my top pocket I pulled out Sergeant Needs’ flask. I turned it over a few times in my palm, before sipping at the very final remnants of the paraffin that was within.
I had lost all my hope. I would die here and for the first time as I thought about it, nothing stirred in the pit of my stomach. Nothing at all.
I smirked to myself as I popped the flask back in my pocket, determining that it would go with me wherever I went in the remainder of my war.
“What you smiling at?” Bob piped up, as we heaved ourselves from our makeshift seats and prepared to move away from the trench.
“I was just wondering if anyone in the regiment was still alive for us t
o take orders off, that’s all.”
Andrew Ellis Returns in another adventure in ‘Wavering Warrior’ now available on Amazon!
Visited by a mysterious Captain, Ellis is seconded to a trench-raiding team, that conducts aggressive patrols in the dead of night.
Caught up in an altercation in No Man’s Land, the question of who lives and dies will be decided more by luck than skill.
Head to Amazon by clicking here and download now to be in the thick of the action once again!
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About the Author
Thomas Wood is the author of the ‘Gliders over Normandy’ book series, as well as the upcoming series surrounding Lieutenant Alfie Lewis, a young Royal Tank Regiment officer in 1940s France.
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