Slaughter Fields Read online

  A few of the men in the hole began shuffling around, before they produced small, circular tins, the kind that we got our milk rations in, now stuffed with anything that they could find that would somehow cause a nuisance to the enemy. Protruding from the top of the lid was a small wick, ready to be lit and thrown.

  The sergeant, perched on the edge of the shell hole, surveying the scene before him, began to fumble around, pulling himself a cigarette from his packet and shoving it into his mouth.

  “On my say so, lob them into the trench. Harris, Dalton, Nash; you’re the first into the dugout. Then the rest follow on.”

  He spoke with such a conviction that not one man wanted to offer up any sort of protestation at being the first men into the enemy trench, essentially being used as bait to determine how many enemy troops were still alive.

  “Beattie, light them up. Might as well light me while you’re at it.”

  “Sarge,” replied Beattie, as he began to rummage around under his shirt to pull out the packet of matches that he kept in his underpants, to keep them dry.

  Beattie lit the sergeant’s cigarette first, before using the last few seconds of his match to light the first jam tin, Sergeant Needs lighting the other two with the tip of his ciggy.

  The fuses fizzed away nicely, the men clutching hold of them nervously looking over at the sergeant, awaiting his go signal, as he continued to defiantly stare out over the top of the hole. His cigarette bobbed around in his mouth as he persisted in puffing away on it, before spitting it out on the ground next to him.

  “Now! Go! Throw them!”

  The three men threw the tins, as if they were one body, towards the trench, the aggressive hissing passing away to the point where we could no longer hear them.

  “You three, now!” he screamed, not even looking back to direct them, just a swift flick of the arm told them that their curtain was rising.

  Just as the three of them emerged from the hole, there was an ear popping bang, one far louder than an artillery shell could ever have been, as the enemy trench was engulfed in a huge cloud of nails and metal fragments.

  I inched my way up to the top of the hole, to take a look at what was going on, just as I watched the three figures leap their way into the German trench, ready to take on whoever and whatever lay in wait for them. I marvelled at their bravery as I watched the last head disappear below the parapet. It was a courage that I wished I possessed, and hoped to gain, as I rubbed shoulders with these heroes. According to Private Sargent, the only other soldier in the platoon who had joined up after the war’s outbreak, bravery came with experience, which was something that I was distinctly lacking in. I had only been in France for two weeks.

  “Whenever you’re ready, Ellis!” Sergeant Needs screamed as he stood confidently atop the shell hole, the others already having vacated and charged towards the trench. Feeling like I was letting the side down, I hopped up, ready to follow suit.

  I snagged my trousers on a coil of barbed wire, destroyed so expertly by the artillery bombardment that had ended not five minutes before. It ripped at my trousers and bit away at the surface of my lower leg, threatening to entangle me in its snares. Gripping it tightly, ignoring the pain that was sent sparking through my hand, I ripped it away forcefully, feeling the small flecks of blood fly around as I did so.

  I caught up with Sergeant Needs just as he was sliding his way into the trench and I watched as his head bobbed below the parapet, before I was coated in another fresh helping of dirt and dust.

  Thankful to be getting out of the open ground and away from the constant shellfire and machine guns, I hopped down into the trench, hitting the fire step half a second later.

  The trench was deep, far deeper than our own, probably dug at a depth of at least six feet, with another foot or two of sandbags around the top. The parados at the back of the trench was probably more than a foot taller than at the front, presumably to help protect the poor souls who occupied this part of the line.

  By my calculations there were seven of us standing in that trench, which had meant that we had lost three others on our way from the shell hole to the German stronghold. It was a fact that not one of us acknowledged as we stood there.

  The section of trench that we hid in seemed relatively quiet, compared to the onslaught of death and destruction that lay just outside of here. But, we all knew that as soon as the Germans had word that their front line was gone, the shells would soon be redirected to fall right onto our heads.

  Sergeant Needs took control of the situation once again, choosing to point at individuals and move his hands around in such a way that he gave us silent instructions.

  Beattie, Harris, Dalton and Nash were to move off to the left, while Sergeant Needs, Etwell and I would move off to the right of the trench, hopefully clearing a decent enough section that meant we met up with the rest of the advance.

  Instantly, everyone swung into action, moving slowly and deliberately in the quiet, the earlier smashing of artillery now just a faint rumbling in my ears. The trench was built in a zig zag formation, and I looked behind me, just to catch the sight of Beattie disappearing around the far side of the section.

  We soon followed suit, Etwell at the front of our small column, Sergeant Needs bringing up the rear, with me, the inexperienced young private in the middle.

  Our rifles, especially with the sharpened point of the bayonet fixed to it, seemed cumbersome in the confined nature of the trenches, making it difficult to swing round corners and bring them up to aim.

  The trench was damp, but not sodden, the wooden boards on the floor were raised above the ground level of the trench ever so slightly, so that the Germans’ feet didn’t get wet, something that I was very grateful for at that moment in time. The parapet was high and well protected with sandbags, the sides consolidated well with a mixture of corrugated iron and branches to offer a sturdier structure.

  The fire step that ran along the length of the trench was littered with everything that might be needed for a night on the frontline; playing cards, cigarettes and even a mouth organ was perched there. Open cans of food lay on their side, obviously abandoned by the retreating troops, gratefully to be accepted by the rats that were gradually making their way out of their own bunkers.

  Our footsteps thumped forebodingly on the wooden boards as we approached the end of our first section of trench.

  As we got to the end, Etwell stopped, lowered his rifle and pressed his back into what was now the front of the trench. He looked across at the two figures behind him, ensuring that they were ready to manoeuvre around the corner. I suddenly noticed that he had lost his cap.

  He nodded to us both, before bringing his rifle back up and edging around the corner of the trench, swinging his rifle up accusingly as he did so.

  Suddenly, there was a whacking noise, the kind that is made when a number one batman smashes a full toss all the way out to the boundary. The smacking noise was accompanied by a low growl from Etwell, reciprocated by an even louder bellow from another figure, clearly not scared in the slightest who he might wake up as he screamed.

  The sergeant and I stood rooted to the spot for half a second, which was just enough time to watch Etwell and an accompanying German soldier cannon into the back of the trench, as I watched the wind explode from his lungs in doing so.

  The German had hit Etwell’s rifle with his own, and was now proceeding to press it as hard as he could into Herbert’s throat, to suffocate the life out of him.

  Etwell was a broad shouldered, muscular man, powerful enough to rugby tackle a horse to the ground if he needed to, but he was struggling against this man, on account of the fact that he was having his windpipe slowly crushed.

  Etwell kicked out into the German’s groin, but still he refused to budge his clamp on Etwell’s neck, forcing it into the back of the trench as much as he could.

  I felt like I should do something, maybe run my bayonet through the German, saving Etwell, but I was too scared to face wh
at was around the corner of the trench.

  What if one of his friends was camped there waiting for me?

  “Shoot him! Ellis, shoot him!” Etwell croaked, as he began to rasp for air, his face turning a vehement red, legs bucking and kicking in frustration.

  A gunshot suddenly exploded right behind my head, rendering me completely deaf, as the sergeant squeezed his way next to me, leaning up against the back of the trench to take the shot at the offending German.

  As if the man had simply been switched off, he slumped into the wall of the trench, as Etwell dropped his rifle and fell to his knees, gasping for air.

  Sergeant Needs stepped forward and mercilessly put his bayonet through the German’s chest, stopping the sucking, gurgling noises that were pitifully muttering from the back of his throat. He said nothing to me as he strode past.

  “Why didn’t you shoot him?” Etwell said, trying to shout but succeeding in only rasping and spitting at me, “Did you want me to die?”

  “I-I’m…sorry,” I stuttered.

  “Sorry? You do that again and I’ll run you through myself. Pull yourself together.”

  I felt humiliated by the short episode and wanted nothing more than to have the whole offensive over and done with, so that I could focus on simply getting through the next day. Every day was one day closer to getting back home safely, I told myself.

  “We’ll have to move quickly now,” Sergeant Needs piped up, “the gunshot will have told them we’re here. Etwell, you’re in the middle, deep breaths.”

  Etwell pushed me to the back of our trio, still clutching and massaging his neck, as Sergeant Needs took the front.

  As one body, we began to inch our way down the next section of the trench, passing an abandoned sharpshooter’s point that was heavily sandbagged and well camouflaged.

  I walked backwards, covering our rear slowly, Etwell checking every couple of paces that I was still with them. Suddenly, a woollen blanket, pulled over a small recess in the trench was thrown backwards, a young German soldier leaping out of it, as if he had slept through the artillery bombardment and subsequent offensive.

  Instinctively, I swung my rifle round, slashing him straight across his stomach as he moved towards me. At first, it seemed like I hadn’t made more than a superficial cut to his skin but after half a second more, he winced as the excitement in his body began to subside and the pain took hold.

  Come on. Stick it in him. Finish him off. He’s the enemy.

  He stared at me with innocent, unbelieving eyes for a moment, as if he was disappointed in me somehow.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered gently to him, as he dropped his rifle and clutched at his stomach, in agony.

  “Finish him!” growled Etwell in my ear, “Now, do it!”

  I stared at the blood which was now resident on the end of my bayonet, not able to take in the damage that I had done to this young boy and his family. Someone, somewhere, was going to miss him, he would become an empty place at the dinner table, just like any of the other British soldiers who had been cut down today.

  “What’s the matter with you!” Etwell rasped, as he plunged his bayonet into the young German’s chest silently, twisting it around in his body for a moment, before withdrawing coolly. “You are weak, Ellis. You better start showing something soon. You’re a liability.”

  He was right, although he expressed it with so much malice in his voice that I wanted to take a bullet to the skull.

  “Alright, Etwell. It’s his first time. Let’s focus.”

  We stood in silence for a moment or two, as the rattle of machine guns somewhere in the distance, coupled with the ever-present artillery, continued to boom under foot. Then, pushing himself from the wall of the trench, Sergeant Needs got back to work.

  “Okay let’s go.”

  Exhaling sharply, Needs rounded the corner to the trench, instinctively raising his rifle into his shoulder, stopping just short of pulling his trigger.

  “Cor, that was a close one mate,” he said, lowering his weapon until it was no longer a threat. “Friends,” he sighed, looking over to us, as he took a step back to let the other soldiers see us.

  “Naik Singh, Sergeant,” he declared, proudly, shouldering his weapon casually. “Second Battalion, Garhwalis.”

  “You were on our right flank.”

  “And you on our left, Sergeant,” he said with a slight smile.

  “So, that means we’re clear.”

  “Yes. I believe so.”

  Sergeant Needs shook his head for a moment, taking in the most recent revelation and working out what to do next.

  “How many men have you got with you, Singh?”

  “Fifteen or sixteen, Sergeant.”

  “Stretch them out along these three sections of the trench. I’ll spread mine out over the next few. Understood?”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  He disappeared around the corner, before I could hear him chattering away to his men on his side of the wall.

  “Right then, we’ll move back this way, link up with the others and wait for orders.”

  I began to feel hungry as I realised that, for now, the action was over and that I had made it. I had survived the treacherous journey across No Man’s Land and made it into the Germans’ trenches. All without having fired a single shot from my rifle.

  Although I felt good, I realised that I had messed up. I hadn’t exactly been expecting to become a regimental war hero, but I had failed to have even killed the enemy when they threatened one of my fellow platoon members.

  If I knew anything about Etwell, I was in for a right rollicking just as soon as we had recovered.

  3

  Physically and emotionally, I had come a long way since I had arrived in France, and it hadn’t seemed all that long ago that Corporal Milne had been introducing me to the rest of the platoon.

  “Welcome, Ellis,” he said with an outstretched arm and a slight, mocking bow, “to Chesney Wold.”

  I looked at him with a smirk on my face and an inquisitive eye, “Chesney Wold?”

  “Yes, Chesney Wold, Ellis. That’s what I said,” he rolled his eyes towards the other members of the platoon, “are you all completely uneducated? Has no one ever read Dickens?”

  “I told you, Milne. No one reads that sort of book anymore, only the old people like you read them still. Corporal Beattie,” the man said, pulling his cigarette from his mouth as he did so.

  “Acting Corporal Beattie, Sam,” Milne said, as if he had said it a thousand times before.

  “Yeah, well, it’s only a matter of time before he bites it and I’ll be the corporal around ‘ere,” he said with a wink. “The girls don’t know the difference anyway.”

  “Chesney Wold was the estate from Bleak House, Ellis. It isn’t exactly chirpy here, hence Chesney Wold,” he proclaimed proudly, as if he enjoyed educating people that didn’t know quite as much as he did.

  “Anyway, that’s Beattie. Over there is our sergeant, who is also a private, he joined up after the war started, like you. The rest of us are professionals.”

  “Meant to be,” the figure remarked, offering out a hand for me to take. “Private Robert Sargent. Their idea of a joke,” he said, rolling his eyes at the sniggering corporal and the rest of his men.

  “Yeah, meant to be,” Milne continued, “that’s Harris, and over there…is Etwell.” The figure barely even looked up to acknowledge he was being spoken to, but instead continued to wipe down his bayonet, inspecting the state of his face from the gleam that it gave off. “Yoo-hoo, Etwell. Are you coming out to play today?”

  “Go home, Milne,” he said, still avoiding having to lift his head up to join the conversation.

  “Etwell,” Milne continued, under his breath, “is our platoon nutcase. Every platoon has one. Etwell is ours.”

  I stayed quiet, not wanting to subject myself to a tirade of abuse that I expected from a man as rough looking as Etwell. Even though he was sitting down, he had a commanding presence,
square jawed and broad, he was built like a Greek god. He frowned defiantly into his bayonet, and for some reason I got the sense that he was growing furious with his own reflection, not wanting to back down.

  “His girl left him for someone else a few weeks ago, only just heard. He’s a little bit angry. Blames the Germans. He is on our side, promise.”

  I gave the corporal a slight smirk in return, as he looked around the trenches to find something else to tell me about.

  “This is our trench anyway. The Germans, are in that direction. Don’t bother looking for them as they’ll find you before you see them. If you know what I mean.”

  “Sharpshooters,” Sargent piped up, “he likes to talk in riddles. You get used to it.”

  I looked back at the corporal, a broad grin right the way across his face. “Some do, some don’t lad. Anyway, make yourself at home.”

  It hadn’t taken me too long to fit into the monotony of the daily routine of the frontline; early morning stand-to, followed by breakfast, then hours of milling about and sleeping, just waiting for the evening stand-to. I was grateful to be rotated off the frontline after four days. But we were soon back again, gearing up for an offensive.

  I never had got quite used to the way that Milne had liked to talk, and now, I never would, as he was lying out in No Man’s Land, waiting for the rats and maggots to begin eating away at his flesh. I bet he was still grinning though.

  He wasn’t the only member of the platoon that was no longer with us. I hadn’t seen the likes of Hawling, Nash or Shaw for well three hours now, and the chances were I never would again, not alive anyway.

  I supposed that they had all met a similar fate to Corporal Milne, lying face down in the dirt somewhere, silently accepting of the fact that they were no longer on this mortal realm.

  I felt guilty in some ways, that the men that had gone down today had been the professional soldiers, the ones who had been dispatched out here as soon as war was declared. They had been through rigorous and thorough training, and most had seen some sort of deployment in one of the far corners of the Empire, only to have been cut down by bullets and bombs just a couple of hundred miles away from Britain.