Wavering Warrior, page 8
part #2 of Trench Raiders Series
As I continued to stare at the strange piece of dirt, I allowed my mind to wander ever so slightly, as I thought about the possibility that I had seen a fellow soldier out in No Man’s Land. I wondered what his job had been, whether he had been one of the armed escorts for one of the preparatory teams, or maybe he had been part of the wire cutting section.
There was even the off chance that he wasn’t part of this raid whatsoever. Maybe he was a wounded soldier from another raid or patrol. If he was, then maybe I would have been able to go over and find out, possibly even bring him back into our lines for treatment.
Before too long, the man was out of my mind, as I prayed that out of everyone taking part tonight, that the wire cutters had done a sterling job, and had the easiest work that they had ever come up against. A lot hinged on them.
If they had managed to clear the wire perfectly, with no disturbance from the Germans, then it could prove to be a much easier operation than I had first anticipated. If though, for example, a German sentry had been seen at the entry point, making it far harder for them to clear the wire stealthily, then there was a chance that we might never make it into the frontline itself.
I just hoped that it was the first scenario, and that they had done it flawlessly, so that I wasn’t about to snag myself on a coil of barbed wire, ringing at the empty tin cans and other bells that they had fixed to their wire. All it would take would be the faintest brush of movement along one outstretched bit of wire and the entire raiding force would be lit up by an illuminating flare. That would be the end of that.
While I was mulling over every eventuality as to what might go wrong, I suddenly became increasingly concerned with our planned artillery bombardment. At the agreed time, the guns would open up, firing a huge amount of ordnance towards our flanks, to keep the inquisitive Hun in adjoining dugouts from racing to their comrades’ assistance. That wasn’t concerning me too much, as we were raiding the central sector of the line, which meant that the flanking bombardment would be a relatively safe distance away from us.
It was the shells that were due to drop just behind the frontline that had begun to scare me. They would fall around the parados of the trench, in the hope that as we made our final approach, the Boche would need to keep their heads down and thus miss our uninvited entry into their frontline.
I only hoped that the artillery commanders had fired a few practice shells earlier in the day, to make sure that they were falling exactly where they should, as I didn’t much fancy being torn to shreds by a shell, not least by one of our own. There were so many factors that could affect the shell’s path, from the dampness of the crate that they had been stored in, right up to the speed and direction of the wind, which I prayed they were keeping a beady eye on.
I felt Earnshaw tapping away at the sole of my boot, urging me to drag myself a few inches further forward to allow him to swing his legs off the top of the ladder and out into No Man’s Land. I did as he had requested and watched him as he juddered his way towards me slowly, until he looked up at me with his thumb pointing to the sky.
Passing the boot tap further down the line, I waited until the column began to move off towards the German lines.
Up in the lead was Captain Arnold, with Sergeant Hughes half a metre further back and to his left side. Behind them was McKay and Bob in a similar pattern. Earnshaw and me bringing up the rear in the same manner as the others.
I made out a faint, low rustling as the fabric of our tunics slid almost noiselessly over the rough terrain, as I began to dig my elbows in to the mud like ice picks looking for some sort of a hold. I kept my bayonet in my right hand, the blade itself running the length of my forearm so I could avoid accidentally impaling my eyeballs on its fine point. My Webley appeared and disappeared in my vision as it stayed faithfully in my left palm.
I repeated myself over and over, keeping McKay’s boot in my line of sight at all times. A few times I lost sight of it, and I felt like a lost child screaming at the top of his lungs for his mother, but I somehow resisted, until the point where I inevitably caught up with them.
We’d covered about twenty yards so far.
Only another three hundred or so to go.
The flare, that had carved a remorseless path up into the inky black night sky, hissed and spluttered as it fell to the ground, making inanimate objects suddenly come alive as we froze to the ground. We stopped dead in our tracks, planting our faces directly into the mud to hide ourselves as best as possible. For me, it was more so that I didn’t have to look at the rounds that would shortly execute me.
As the flare died a solemn death, giving up its source of light with a depressive sigh, I pulled my head up. The Captain’s head was already back up, flicking around in the darkness. I wondered for a moment if he had had his head down at all and thought maybe he had taken it upon himself to pinpoint our various waypoints early on, or maybe to scan ahead and see what opposition we might be met with.
My sockets burned brilliantly as the darkness began to take hold once again and I struggled to regain the ability to see in the dark, which was poor enough to begin with.
The Captain, even in the enshrouding darkness, was already thinking, imagining every possible outcome of where we were right now and thinking through his resolutions. He was straining so hard, I felt like I could see exactly what he was thinking.
Why send that flare up? Had they seen us? Maybe one of the other parties? Do they have their own party out?
He leant into Sergeant Hughes, who beckoned Bob up to his mouth, who in turn, did the same to me.
He spoke impossibly quietly and even though I could feel his lips moving along my ear, he sounded almost like a wind, a ghost.
“Stay alert. Could be an enemy patrol. Revolvers only if needed.”
I repeated the message to Earnshaw who, surprisingly, only nodded in return. Maybe the reason he talked so much was to make up for the silence he had to adhere to out here.
I was suddenly very cold and wanted earnestly to begin moving again. The sweat that had formed up on my body as we had dragged ourselves through the mud began to chill on my skin, made worse still by the midnight breeze that caressed every hair on my body, bringing them to attention.
We began to move again, just as a wisp of cloud raced across and covered the stars from my gaze, giving them the appearance that they were in a game of hide and seek. I missed the comfort of the stars, their celestial warmth all I seemed to have as I made my way over the most desolate of landscapes. But, at the same time, the clouds were there to protect me, to bring a synthetic darkness over the landscape that was even blacker than the night itself.
The closer we edged to the German frontline, the more debris and resistance we came up against in our approach. I soon found myself rolling bodies out of my path, both German and British as they clogged up our chaotic route towards death. Some were in relatively good condition, as if they had stopped off only a few minutes ago for a sleep, apart from the stone-cold touch of their skin. Others were badly decomposed and felt frail, as if I could tear entire limbs off with nothing more than a swift tug.
I had no choice but to ignore them, and their smells, in order to keep up with the rest of the section and a slightly better chance at survival.
Suddenly, the pairs of boots in front of me began to disappear systematically, until Earnshaw was shoving me over to my left, forcing me into a water-filled shell hole.
Captain Arnold sat with his back up against one of the sloped sides of the shell hole, which looked suspiciously like it had been deepened with the aid of an entrenching tool or two. I could only wonder as to which side had been the ones to begin the digging.
“Machinegun number one will set up here. Our left-hand post as we head back to our lines. Try and use it as a marker if we get separated.”
It felt good to be able to have some sort of reference point for when we headed back, and I began twisting and turning where I sat, to try and familiarise myself with the immediate area, giving myself the best chance at making it back in one piece.
“Don’t pay too much attention to it, son,” rasped Hughes, “terrain’s likely to change by the time we head back out. Just remember its vague position.”
I nodded, feeling foolish that I was trying to count the number of holes between here and the remnants of an old barn, that had been razed to nothing more than a few inches of bricks.
I felt Sergeant Hughes smirking in the darkness, my face blushing red under the layers of grease and grime that I had packed onto myself.
There was no chance for a break, no opportunity for some sort of breather, as we were soon slowly scrabbling our way back out of the hole and exposing ourselves to the elements once more.
My skin was soaked, and it felt as though every fibre of my itchy uniform was scratching at my body, to irritate me in any way that it could. We hadn’t been crawling for all that long, twenty minutes maybe, and the prospect of having to stay in the same clothes for at least another couple of hours was one that filled me with misery. I had enjoyed my time in the frontline more than this.
I became breathless as we stopped again, doing everything within my power to prevent myself from wheezing and shrieking as I pulled in mouthful after mouthful of air. Now was not the time to make unnecessary noises; I could see the German wire.
What the Germans were doing in their trenches not to see or hear us approaching was beyond me, and could only suppose that their sentries had some sort of visual impairment. But I could hear the men in the dugout doing much the same that our men would do on a normal night; wandering up and down the trench, checking in with one another, making sure the sentries were okay for a smoke and generally trying to keep one another’s morale up.
I found it odd, again, how normal these Germans were, how similar they were to our own troops. They were just men, like we were, sent here by invisible commanders to show an unholy amount of aggression towards an enemy who had really done no wrong to us. I was beginning to show a compassion for the men that I would soon be asked to kill.
All we could do now was lie here in wait. I knew that the Captain would be checking his wristwatch impatiently every ten seconds or so, waiting until he knew that everyone else would be in position, then all we would be waiting for would be that first artillery shell.
I wondered if the wire cutters had managed to hear the Germans with the same clarity that I now could, or whether, on account of the hour, their voices carried far more powerfully. I concluded that they must have heard them talking, possibly using their own noise against them, to be able to snip away at the wire that would allow us free entry.
It was a grave mistake on the Germans’ part and one that I believed meant that they should lose the entire war.
Just as I felt my body beginning to be enveloped in the ever-pressing chill, I thought I heard a noise. Already being completely still, I froze everything else that was moving; my heart, my lungs, my blood and listened.
Then it was there again, far in the distance, but noticeable if you were listening specifically for it.
Thumm. Thumm. Thumm.
13
The artillery shells had barely uttered their first syllable announcing their arrival and Captain Arnold was already on his feet and leaping down into the German dugout. He jumped with such a vigour and athleticism that I thought he had miscalculated and had ended up on the far side of the trench.
I had no time to calculate whether the Captain’s jumps were misjudged or not, as within seconds, it was my turn to leap down into the dugout and begin to assess what was going on.
I had half a second to myself before I was pulled from my frozen state, by which time most of the raiders already had a subject at their fingertips and were beginning to beat them black and blue. The Germans seemed totally unwilling to put up anything that resembled a fight, instead opting to simply take a jolly good beating from their enemy.
The raiders had jumped upon them with such short notice that the Germans barely had time to bring their weapons to bear, meaning they were simply knocked to the ground as twelve stone of purebred British soldier crumpled down on top of them.
The Captain already had one man down to the ground, a swift, elegant and jaw-breaking punch landed on the underside of his chin, which sent teeth flying upwards and the German in the opposite direction. He now writhed around on the floor in agony, clutching at his mouth which was filling up nicely with blood, completely out of the action for the time being.
Sergeant Hughes had become a man possessed and had clubbed a man over the head with his nail-embedded truncheon, splitting the man’s skull open before moving on to anyone else who seemed to want to put up a fight.
Even McKay was getting stuck in, shouting in a coarse German tone to his subject as he landed blow after blow to the German’s chest. I could see now why he had been called the physical persuader. Within seconds the German had no option but to do what the broad shouldered and threatening McKay told him to do, and I was certain that I had just identified our first prisoner of the night.
A cutthroat roar suddenly exploded in my ear drums, and I turned just in time to watch a man, presumably an enemy soldier, charge towards me, his peak-less forage cap lolling over to one side, as if he had just been woken up from his sleep.
It seemed like he had, as he offered up no sort of resistance and graciously ran straight into my oncoming fist, which knocked him over as if the rug had been pulled from under his feet. He cannoned backwards for half a second and I thought I might have killed the man with a single hit for a fleeting moment. He lay on the floor unconscious and I had no time nor inclination to check and see if he was okay.
“Tie him to me! Tie him to me!” screamed McKay, as he launched a length of rope in my direction. Under his other arm he more or less carried his prisoner in a headlock, the poor young man drifting in and out of consciousness and leaking blood everywhere.
I did as McKay told me, securing the prisoner around his waist before giving a sharp tug on the rope to double check its security.
“You’re good to go, McKay! He’s all yours!”
The artillery was making an almighty racket, the great whooshes sounding like an express train as it shot its way through a station. The ground shook with each explosion sending towers of dirt and rubble in every direction, making it feel like it was raining mud in the trench.
McKay began to growl at his prisoner, as he staggered around trying to stop McKay from having an excuse to put a bullet in his skull. But it seemed that McKay was talking to him most compassionately, soothingly almost, as if he was talking to a friend and not an enemy.
“What now, McKay? Where do I go from here?”
The others had begun to scrabble around for papers, or put the finishing touches to the black and blue make up that they were applying to the remaining few conscious stragglers.
The Captain, above another volley of three shell bursts, interrupted his reply. “Take Earnshaw! Move to the next dugout. There’s a machine gun there. Try and disable it!”
Before he could finish, Earnshaw was already making his way over to me, revolver up and ready. I assumed the same position and began to creep around the corner, as if reducing my noise might help me in my next phase of operations.
As I approached the corner, I thought I caught a flash of movement on the other side of the wall. I wasn’t able to give it a second thought as in the next moment, a German bolted around the corner and came face to face with me.
He seemed totally unprepared for what was about to happen next. He had no weapon from what I could see, nothing on his head and it appeared like all he was doing was coming round into the next dugout to warn them of the trench raid that was going on further down the line.
I swung my elbow up and round, catching him on the crook of his nose with my best impression of a flailing chicken wing. He staggered for a moment, but was soon aware as to what was happening, as if my blow had done nothing other than wake him up.
He flung a fist towards me wildly, slamming into my cheekbone with an almighty explosion of pain. My vision in my right eye suddenly became hazy and I felt the side of my face burn as blood rushed to the source of the pain.
I stumbled backwards in response, as the now-snarling German, grinning at the realisation that his opponent was already on the ropes, came at me for a second pass.
The second blow caught me on the temple, and I felt an eruption of pain, even greater than the last, as it seemed like a tidal wave of blood and pain washed through the frontal lobe of my brain. Immediately, I was fighting off a headache as well as the fighting German, who picked up an entrenching tool that was leaning against the wall of the trench and came at me with it.
He raised the weapon high above his head, bringing it down with a grunt and swish as it carved its way through the air. Instinctively, I pulled my right arm in a defensive block instantly feeling it shatter as it gave way under the pressure of his might.
I bellowed in pain as I realised the German too was screaming, probably more out of frustration that he hadn’t been able to put me down yet. I waited for him to lift the tool above his own height for a second time, knowing that I had to put this to bed before he smashed all of my limbs to pieces.
As the weapon went up, he left his torso completely exposed, and I threw myself at him as hard as I could, hoping that my momentum would carry me forward and exaggerate the blow that he would feel.
I slammed into him, my left arm out at a strange angle, and I felt the hilt of the bayonet dig into my ribs as the business end was forced into his chest. I felt the bayonet chip away at organs and bone, but surprisingly little resistance was put up by the German’s internals, and soon the full length of the bayonet had been plunged into his skin.
I had been hoping that the pain might make him immediately sink to his knees, dropping the weapon harmlessly to the floor. But I was mistaken.
