Heart of War (23 page)

Whistles blew all along the trench. The men at the ladders climbed up, ran out and pulled aside the knife rests. Man after man followed, bowed, leaden footed, hands shaking, wet, ice cold with fear, going on, up, out, easing to right and left. ‘Good luck, good luck!' Quentin shouted, his hands cupped, as he stood near the foot of a ladder. ‘We'll be right behind you!'

The British artillery lifted off the German front line, and in that moment the German gunners opened up. Heavy shells trundled in like moving wagons, or blocks of concrete, that burst with tremendous explosions among the khaki rows. Machine guns came to life as the lyddite smoke drifted off No Man's Land. Watching through a periscope, Boy saw the lines of the two leading companies, B left and C right, silhouetted against the smoke, begin to thin. Great gaps were torn in them by huge invisible hands, but the lines moved steadily on.

‘Ready, Boy?' his uncle yelled.

He nodded, and followed up the ladder. Up on top the churning in his stomach ceased. He felt suddenly hot, and raging. The chalky upland was strewn with dead, blood drained in a hundred streams from smashed bodies and torn bowels, rifles and bayonets lay like cut reeds, packs torn open by shell bursts, their contents scattered – socks, housewife, photo of a woman and a child … Machine guns were traversing … left to right … three, at least, mowing down A Company to his left. Five days of shelling and they were still there, still manned, still firing … He saw his uncle, a few paces to his right and just ahead, start, and grab his left arm below the elbow with his right. Soon the sleeve was dark with blood. German artillery shells were falling so thick among the advancing lines that Boy could not see more than a few yards except intermittently, when a gust of wind, or the bursting of another shell, for a moment dispersed the smoke … Such a moment came and he stared … one man crawling on hands and knees near the edge of Mametz Wood … another walking forward far to the left … for the rest, humps, and lumps, and grotesque shapes.

He shouted, ‘They're
gone
, sir!'

‘Most of 'em knocked over, poor devils.' Quentin shouted back. ‘The rest, gone to ground … Who's due to follow us?'

‘14th York and Lancs, sir,' Boy looked back over his shoulder, still trudging forward, and dimly saw fresh lines of khaki men coming out of the British front line trenches. ‘They're coming now.'

‘Wait for them,' Quentin said. ‘We'll gather our fellows together … close them up, here … You go that way, I'll go left.'

He walked off, his ash plant swinging, shouting to the few men crouched or lying on the ground, ‘Go to the R.S.M.… line up near him … Sergeant, line them up over there … Get a move on, Corporal!'

Boy broke into a stumbling run. ‘Move!' he said, leaning down to jerk a lying man to his feet. The man was lying in the correct prone position, rifle outthrust, legs spread, heels pressed flat to the earth. His head flopped over, revealing a round blue hole in the middle of his forehead … But others heard and jumped up and ran to the R.S.M. who was kneeling, a rifle taken from a dead soldier in his hands, firing carefully aimed shots at the German trench, now barely a hundred yards away.

The leading men of the York and Lancs arrived and Boy and Quentin and the R.S.M. shouted together, ‘Up, lads! Up, Wealds, up!'

The R.S.M. doubled over, falling, the rifle hurling away in the convulsion of his death, machine-gun bullets tattooing his falling body. The York and Lancs trudged up, past … but, as though a wand had been waved, a cloth wiped across a dirty spot, they were not there. The machine guns traversed on, but there was no one standing, only dead lying piled on top of each other in the mud and water, and a few living and wounded crouched in the new, smoking shell holes.

Boy found himself close to his uncle, both lying against the forward slope of a huge hole left by a large calibre German shell, probably one of their 17-inch guns. Half a dozen soldiers lay to right and left, some of them Wealds, some of them York and Lancs, together with Father Caffin, the battalion's R.C. padre.

An unreal quiet fell on the field. Boy muttered to his uncle, ‘Do you think it's been like this everywhere, sir?'

Quentin said energetically, ‘Of course not, Boy! We'll be able to advance again as soon as the other brigades get past the flanks of these fellows in front of us. Here, put my first
field dressing on this, will you? … There, thanks. Where's the R.S.M.?'

‘Dead, sir. Just back there.'

‘Poor chap. His wife's having another baby next month. Have to think about appointing someone else …'

‘Dalley's the senior C.S.M., sir. A Company.'

‘Is he fit for it?'

‘I think so … He may be dead. The German artillery nearly wiped them out as they left our trenches …'

Quentin hauled himself up to the lip of the crater, and put his binoculars to his eyes. ‘Swine!' he muttered under his breath. ‘They're waiting … machine guns on the parapet … wire uncut.'

Boy said, ‘Our patrols reported it was cut two days ago.'

‘Not ours, Boy. Patrols of the battalion that was holding the front then, and supposed to make all preparations for our attack …' He slid back into the bottom of the crater. ‘Organize these men, Boy. I'm going to see how many others we have, then I'll come back here. Get ready to resume the attack …'

He pushed himself up out of the crater and then, walking fast but not running, went to another shell hole nearby. A solitary German fired one shot, apparently at him, but missed, and Quentin disappeared into the shell hole.

Boy turned on a York and Lancs corporal – ‘What's your name?'

‘Hatfield, sir.'

‘Put half the men here and half there. Check ammunition, grenades, gas masks. Fill up pouches from the dead. Get those two Lewis guns off the dead out there and use them here.' His voice failed him. The corporal, pale and strained, waited. Boy finished, ‘Get on with it!'

He sat down on the sloping side, his legs turned to water. A voice nearby said quietly, “Tis a mess, an' all, Boy.'

He looked up. Father Caffin's tunic was covered with blood, as were his hands. He muttered, ‘You're wounded.'

The priest shook his head, “Twas one of the boys I was holding in my arms just now.'

‘You weren't supposed to come forward with us,' Boy said.

‘Ach, I know, but how would any good Irishman be missing a fight like this?'

Boy looked round to see that none of the men could hear him, then said, ‘All these poor fellows … gone … and we're nowhere …'

The priest laid a hand on his shoulder, “Twas not your fault, anyway. Or the colonel's. They all know that.'

Colonel Rowland came tumbling into the crater behind them. He shouted, ‘B Company's in the German trench! Up, everyone! Follow me!'

Private Niccolo Fagioletti stood frozen in the bottom of the German trench, his rifle gripped convulsively in his right hand. Men passed, hurrying, stumbling, bent on their own errands. Five dead Germans, all apparently destroyed by a single shell, were plastered in pieces against the walls and floor of the trench a little farther along, near the first traverse. From a great distance he heard voices, and recognized the sharp cockney twang of Sergeant Thompson, his platoon sergeant. Opposite him, sprawled back on a sort of seat cut out of what had been the front wall of the German trench and was now the back wall, Lieutenant Beldring stared at the sky, his skin chalky white, spittle dribbling from the corner of his half open mouth, both hands clasped over his belly, hiding the entry wounds of the three machine gun bullets that had hit him just before they reached and fell into the German trench.

Fagioletti realized that he himself was still alive. He could not believe it, and moved his left hand up in front of his face and stared at it. A violent trembling broke out all over his body, and he became aware of the sodden weight in his trousers, and the vile smell surrounding him.

‘Wot the bleedin' 'ell do you think you're doing, Dago?' Sergeant Thompson was in front of him, screaming. ‘Gawd, you stink, man!'

‘I … I shitted myself,' Fagioletti stammered.

‘There's plenty done that. Clean yourself up and put on Jones '65's trousers – there. He won't need 'em any more and ‘c's about your size. Then get up on the firestep. Jerry'll come back at us, and 'e won't wait till you're ready.'

Fagioletti unbuckled his equipment with trembling, clumsy fingers, took off his puttees and trousers, and wiped himself with water standing in the trench. After a long struggle he managed to get the trousers off the corpse of
Private Jones '65, and put them on. Now that he was dressed again, fear returned. Machine guns were opening up again. The trench was in bad shape, severely damaged by the long preliminary bombardment, but the deep dugouts were mostly untouched. He sneaked into the doorway of one, and started down the steps.

A roar behind him made him stop. ‘You, there! Come out … So it's you, is it, Dago?' Sergeant Thompson's sharp face contorted as he grabbed Fagioletti by the ear, nearly wrenching it off as he dragged him back up the dugout steps. ‘There!' he screamed, ‘there's the firestep, that ammunition box, stand on it, face that way … Freeman, shoot this dago if he tries to sneak off.' He bustled on, shouting oaths.

Gradually the line of men on the makeshift firestep – the real firestep faced the wrong way – lengthened and strengthened. Two captured German machine guns were in position, facing the Germans. It was nine o'clock, the sun climbing fast in the summer sky, aeroplanes – all British – buzzing and circling far and near.

Beldring began to moan. Fagioletti stole a glance behind him, and saw that the officer's eyes were closed. Sergeant Thompson was on one knee beside him, speaking close – ‘You'll be all right, sir … We'll 'ave you out of 'ere in no time …'

Fagioletti turned again to face out over the shell-torn earth, the barbed wire, some cut, some undamaged, that protected the German reserve trenches, and the sunken concrete pillboxes, which did not seem to have been damaged much, if at all.

He heard a strong voice behind him speak sharply, ‘Who's in command here?' and Sergeant Thompson's reply, ‘I am, sir.'

Fagioletti glanced round again and saw that the speaker was the C.O. of the battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Rowland. He had only seen him once, when he had addressed a few words to the draft, but Fagioletti had a good memory for names and faces. In his business, it meant a lot in tips to call a customer by his right name, especially if he hadn't come in for some time. With the C.O. was the adjutant, whom he had seen two or three times, and knew was the C.O.'s nephew.

‘How's Mr Beldring?' the C.O. asked. Sergeant Thompson dropped his voice to reply, as though the wounded officer could hear – ‘Bad, sir.'

‘Have you given him morphine?'

‘Yes, sir. All I 'ad. 'E caught three or four in the stomach.'

‘Don't give him any water then. It's bad for stomach wounds. We'll try to get him back when we can … Ah, Stratton, what's the situation in your sector?'

‘Bad, sir,' another voice answered. ‘My platoon was all but wiped out in the attack. I had three men when we got here … I've picked up a dozen more from other platoons, dozen Yorks and Lancs, and a few Devons.'

‘I'll come and take a look. Boy, how many have we got together so far?'

‘About a hundred and sixty, sir … seven officers.'

The soldier on Fagioletti's right shouted, ‘Here they come!'

A hurricane of German shells hit the trench. Fagioletti found Colonel Rowland standing on another ammunition box beside him, a rifle in his hand, glaring out into the flying earth, mud, and smoke. German soldiers were coming out of their reserve trenches a hundred yards on, in groups and bunches, darting forward, disappearing, reappearing. The captured machine guns were in action, with all available rifles and Lewis guns. The colonel began to shoot, aiming and firing methodically.

The colonel turned his head and snarled, ‘You're not aiming, man! Aim! Kill a Hun each shot or by God they'll kill you!'

Fagioletti tried to concentrate on the flitting grey figures out there … picked one out … steadied his sights … fired. The man fell, bounced, half rose, fell again.

‘I kill a man,' he cried. ‘Oh God, I kill a man!'

The colonel did not respond. He must think I am mad, Fagioletti thought, and fired again, and again, increasing his rate of fire as the attacking Germans worked closer.

Now they were forty yards away … twenty … He never missed now, the wooden stock was hot to his left hand, the cordite acrid in his nostrils. The captured machine guns were eating great bites out of the German groups … not lines, Fagioletti noticed, but independently moving bunches, some sprawled or hidden, firing, others coming on at a run.

Potato masher bombs whirled through the air, to burst in the trench or on the earth in front of him, hurling mud into his face.

The colonel leaped to his feet, ‘Up, Wealds! Give 'em the bayonet!'

He scrambled up and into the open. Fagioletti felt a hand shoving him from behind, and he was up, out. There was another officer beside him, the one he'd got drunk with in the Mess – Mr Campbell, now with rifle and bayonet in hand … They were on the Germans, face to face, hand to hand. He lunged at a big German at the moment that the man paused to fire at Mr Campbell. The bayonet slid into the German's neck, grated on bone. Fagioletti pulled the trigger. The blast freed the bayonet from the German's spine and he fell, crashing across Fagioletti's feet. To the side, Mr Campbell was darting under the guard of another German, his bayonet sliding into the man's belly just above the belt buckle.

The adjutant was out there, too, and seventy men of three battalions, milling together with the twenty Germans who had reached this far. Suddenly the Germans turned and fled, disappearing into the smoke. For a moment the British stood in the open, braying after them like triumphant cavemen, waving rifles in the air, blood dripping from the bayonets. Colonel Rowland grabbed Fagioletti's arm and yelled, ‘We showed them!'