Miller waited until Post had left. “You do agree, don’t you? About Sergeant Bailey?”
“Bailey’s a good man,” McCloud said. “He just needs some time to get over the last show. You know Mount Sorrel was a real hellhole; easily the worst bombardment the battalion has ever been under. When we lost our old lieutenant, not to mention two corporals and a dozen privates, it hit him pretty hard. He felt responsible even though there was nothing he could have done differently.”
“I know you think I don’t care about the men, that I treat them like toys and only think about promotions,” Miller said. “I hear what goes around, and it isn’t true. Still, Bailey has got to go. Look at us, separated from the rest of the battalion and with no idea where we’re supposed to be. Back here it’s an annoyance, and more embarrassing than anything else. When we’re in the frontlines it could mean the difference between life and death. I’m sure you know that as well as I do.”
“I’ll talk to Bailey, maybe he just needs a little wake-up call. But in the meantime tell Burns to ease up, and I’ll make sure Post plays nice. We can’t have our lances at odds with each other; it’ll look bad in front of the privates.”
“Agreed.”
“Speaking of which, we should probably get back to our sections. The men get nervous when they see corporals plotting.”
Burns already had his section on their feet, lined up for an impromptu inspection. Another minute and Miller and McCloud’s men were donning their battle gear wearily. Post would have liked to let his men doze until Carter’s return, but the other corporals would look bad, and for infantry NCOs image was very important. Slowly, Post placed his own equipment over his shoulders and hoisted his rifle.
“On your feet, you lazy brigands, haven’t you heard the war is waiting for us? Those rifles better be spotless, bayonets sharp, canteens full, and most importantly, buttons fucking gleaming,” Post said.
If Lance Corporal Post had one thing in common with Bill and Hal, it was their mutual love of swears. He knew he was responsible for tainting the younger men’s vocabulary, but considering the high likelihood of his last two Original privates ending up dead soon, it didn’t seem awfully important. And considering the even higher likelihood of his own death, he didn’t feel awfully guilty.
“Good news, Lance.” Green said. “I had that dream again, you know–”
“The Lady Lieutenant! Do tell. She almost makes me want to take a commission.”
*
Although formed up and ready to march around seven o’clock, it was now well after noon, and the battalion had yet to move. It was a typical case of “hurry up and wait.” Once more, the men settled into their gear for a nap, or broke out decks of playing cards to pass the time. Six Platoon’s temporary absence had been noticed by the three other platoon commanders in B Company, but Captain Reid hadn’t said anything. Second Lieutenant Carter decided not to confront Sergeant Bailey about the apparent miscommunication that had left the rest of Six Platoon absent from most of breakfast and scrambling for leftovers. Bailey hadn’t said a word to anyone all morning, and while each man’s stomach growled, no private could manage an unfriendly glance in their sergeant’s direction. He had taught them everything they knew and led them through each battle; he just hadn’t been himself recently.
3
The march to the trenches was uneventful, more so than usual. The regular joking, boasting, and singing were absent. Everybody knew that Regina Trench, the longest and perhaps best defended stretch of the German line, was the battalion’s objective. Just a few days earlier another group of Canadians had failed to take it. Like all failures, it had been a costly one. Battalions were being reduced to platoons for the gain of a few hundred yards, or sometimes none at all, with increasing regularity.
The road between Albert and Pozieres was littered with the debris of the past few months of fighting. Abandoned gear, broken down vehicles and wagons, dead horses and mules filled the ditches and fields. Dead soldiers were usually cleared away within a few days. Pre-war churchyards doubled or tripled their size. First-aid stations behind the lines were always accompanied by ever-expanding cemeteries hastily scratched into the earth.
But not all of the dead were content with such lacklustre endings. Halfway down the road stood a pair of Canadians, men of the Twenty-Fourth battalion, who had been killed a few days earlier. Both leaned on their rifles, forming a macabre tepee. They had been chatting at the side of the road and, judging by the state of their uniforms and equipment, had been survivors of the earlier fighting for Regina Trench. The two had been on their way back to Albert and had paused, perhaps for a cigarette or a drink of water. One man had a hand on the other’s shoulder, an open smile still plastered on his face; killed instantly in mid-conversation. The other man had been less lucky. His face was distorted in surprise and agony, his body half-twisted, evidently killed a moment after the blast. Their steel helmets were pockmarked like a tin roof after a hailstorm from the indentations of shrapnel balls, while their bodies were peppered with little entry and exit wounds.
Green had thought of a few clever comments to make as the platoon passed by the two dead men, but decided that some things were above mockery. Hallicks carried Bill’s equipment most of the way as Bill rubbed at his temples trying hopelessly to dull a smashing headache, the result of too much cheap wine the night before.
“I feel like I died, and heaven didn’t take me,” Bill mumbled.
Lincoln and Jack were keeping each other’s spirits up with stories about their children. Post was making his cigarettes last, lighting one, taking a few puffs, then snuffing it out between his thumb and forefinger before lighting it again a few minutes later.
At Pozieres the men were issued with ammunition, grenades, shovels, wire-cutters, and all the other sundry items required for a successful attack. The plan, which had been changing constantly over the past few days, was explained once more. Officers and senior NCOs were privy to map coordinates and information about timings, tasks, support, re-supplies, and relief. The privates and corporals were given simpler explanations.
Bill couldn’t focus on what Second Lieutenant Carter was saying. His head still ached, while his stomach, only capable of keeping down small amounts of water at a time, gurgled violently. A crude model made of twigs and stones lay on the ground as Carter did his best to explain the plan of attack. Bill looked to Post, who was visibly unimpressed with the plan, and with Carter. Post caught Bill’s glance and tapped the lance corporal chevron on his right shoulder. It was an inside joke of theirs: “Follow the Lance.”
*
Once dusk fell the battalion made its way north. The road to the frontline was uneven and pitted with shellholes; too treacherous for vehicles, though good enough for men and supply mules laden with heavy crates of ammunition, tins of water, and sacks of fresh vegetables and bread. On either side of the road, sheets of burlap cloth, badly torn from shellfire, were draped between long metal stakes to conceal the movement of men and materials from German observers. A few sandbagged dugouts, mostly first-aid stations, were the closest thing to civilization; while dead trees, blasted into all manner of ominous forms were the closest thing to nature.
Eventually the road faded beneath their feet as the ground achieved its ultimate state of bleakness. At a tall, man-made berm, the battalion entered the warrens of criss-crossing trenches. Communication trenches, which ran east and west were basic affairs, and simply provided a safe passage for soldiers making their way through the lines of firing, support, and reserve trenches. These latter were much more complicated.
Eight feet deep, four feet wide, sandbagged parapets, reinforced sides, drainage pumps, wooden duckboards, interlocking fields of fire, bombproof dugouts; it was all very scientific on paper. But in the harsh conditions of the frontlines few of these regulations were realized. Redoubts that took weeks to construct were smashed beyond recognition after a few minutes of heavy shellfire. Old trenches were pilfered for corrugated tin and s
craps of firewood. Some areas were too dangerous for work parties, and remained in a half-finished state. Above all, the men who occupied the frontline were often too tired or busy just staying alive to worry about repairing collapsed walls, fixing wrecked barbed wire, or digging new latrines. Only trenches constructed at training camps conformed to the precise blueprints of the generals.
Of all the specifications, just two were universally followed. A trench deep enough to provide any real protection necessitated an elevated firing step to allow the defenders to place their heads and rifles at ground level in order to repel attacks. Ideally these were two or three feet high continuous ledges reinforced to prevent them from being washed away in the rain. Often times, mounds of sandbags were an adequate substitute.
The other rule that was observed religiously was the inclusion of traverses. Every fifteen or so yards, trenches terminated at a thick wall of earth, curved about in a c-shape, then carried on. In this way, each stretch of trench was separated by a traverse. This allowed for captured areas to be sealed-off and systematically retaken, while preventing a few plucky attackers from capturing a large portion of the line all at once. Further, with each bit of trench isolated by a traverse on either side, the effects of shellfire and grenades was minimized.
Around midnight the battalion finally settled into its new positions. The attack would begin in five hours.
*
“Hey, Jim, don’t you think you should get some sleep?” It was Sergeant Bailey, equipment and rifle slung haphazardly over his right shoulder.
Corporal McCloud was sitting on a firing step, carefully applying a thin coat of oil to his rifle. “Soon enough, I’m almost through here. Care to join me, Sarnt’?”
Bailey heaved his load to the ground next to McCloud and sat on it. “The only reason I carry this junk around,” he said, indicating the heap. “It keeps my ass from freezing to the ground.”
McCloud couldn’t help but notice that his sergeant’s rifle and gear were covered in mud; half the ammunition pouches were obviously empty, the canteen probably was too. Grimacing, he prepared himself for the unavoidable. “What’s wrong?”
Bailey could have pretended not to understand, but he’d been expecting this for some time. A great sadness filled his face, devoid of self-pity, but not of self-doubt. “I should have been born a decade later. I’m starting to think I’m too old for this.”
“What about Old Jack? He’s got to have ten or fifteen years on you.”
“Jack’s losing it. I’m getting him transferred to the transport section once we get some new men. Besides, he’s a private,” Bailey’s posture straightened as he forced his neck into the back of his collar. “I’m a sergeant. I’ve been one since ’07, you know that?”
McCloud nodded.
Bailey pointed to the younger man’s Distinguished Conduct Medal ribbon. “Everyone else is getting promotions and medals. Don’t get me wrong, you’ve earned what you’ve got, and more. But no other sergeant has more time at the front than me.”
“It won’t be long ‘til you’re company sergeant major, you know that. Once Flynn gets–” McCloud stopped himself from stating the obvious. Flynn was, after all, their fifth CSM in the twenty months since the battalion had come to France. “Promoted, posted somewhere bombproof, you’ll be next in line. And I’m sure there’s a citation floating around some brigade office just waiting for a signature. You know how they are with medals.”
Bailey was stone-faced. “I told Carter you should take over when I leave, whenever that is.”
McCloud wasn’t surprised. He knew he was the best choice, but hoped a little false humility would change the subject; it was sad to see Bailey picking at himself. “What about Miller? He was a corporal before me.”
“Don’t be foolish. I’d take a private with six months overseas over an NCO straight from Canada. You would too. Besides, you’re both Queen’s Own from before the war; you’re on a level playing field.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You know.”
It was easy to forget that Bailey was one of the few Originals, or replacements for that matter, who had joined the Third Battalion through the Royal Grenadiers, not the Queen’s Own Rifles. For the men who had joined since the beginning of the war it was an unimportant detail. For those who had belonged to either militia regiment before the war began, old rivalries and politics were still alive and well. Company Sergeant Major Flynn, along with all of B Company’s previous top NCOs had been pre-war members of the Queen’s Own Rifles.
“I know you think you’re being treated unfairly, and maybe you are, but we need the old Bailey back, the one who never frowned and was always encouraging us,” McCloud said, reassembling his rifle. “Here, hand me yours.”
“Don’t bother, it’ll only get dirty again,” Bailey replied, collecting his gear and walking into the darkness.
“Sergeant McCloud,” he whispered to himself. “I don’t like the sound of it.”
*
Hallicks was tired, but he couldn’t sleep. Knowing that he should at least rest his body, he had wedged himself into a one-man dugout cut into the side of the trench wall. Like shelves in catacombs, soldiers were neatly tucked away a few feet off the ground. Safe from rainwater when the trenches inevitably flooded, these dugouts also guaranteed a man wouldn’t be stepped on in the darkness by a pacing sentry, exhausted ration party, or a wandering man seeking to relieve himself.
Next to Hal’s space a small nook was indented into the side of the trench, just long enough to seat three men, and topped with a sheet of corrugated tin. Old Jack sat in the middle while Bill and Green faced each other; Lincoln crouched in the trench itself. A little piece of wood was placed on the knees of the three seated men, forming a makeshift table. Even Old Jack wasn’t in the mood for sleep.
“What’s trump?” Jack asked as his partner, Lincoln, was still shuffling.
“We’ll soon find out,” Lincoln said.
“Oh. Right of course.”
The queen of hearts was turned up. Green passed silently with a wave of his hand. A long moment passed; longer for Bill, who was staring at a lone hand of clubs. “It’s your turn, Jack, you can either order Linc up, or pass.”
“Oh, I pass,” Jack replied.
“Pass. It’s on you, Lincoln,” Bill said.
Lincoln’s hand wasn’t great, but he could tell when Bill was excited, impatient. “Well, I guess we’ll try it.”
“What’s that? A spade?” Jack asked.
“Hearts are trump,” Lincoln corrected. “We’ve got this Jack.”
Bill couldn’t take it any longer. Being polite to Old Jack was one thing, but sitting around with a handful of now-useless cards was too much. “Hearts are always fuckin’ trump. Hey, Hal, I’ve gotta piss, wanna take my hand?”
“Can’t work those trouser buttons, huh?” Green asked. “Besides, he’s already got two hands. Oh, oh, let’s see, ah: but how will you read your watch?”
“‘Take my hand.’ Real funny Green, but your jokes get worse as you go on.”
Jack looked from one man to the next waiting for someone to explain, then settled on Lincoln.
“It’s just a joke, Jack. Wordplay.”
Hallicks wriggled his way into the alcove and snatched Bill’s cards. “I hope the old men are ready to get trounced.”
“Try not to table-talk this time,” Lincoln said. “There’s a reason we hate playing cards with you. So before you ask: if you order up your partner you have to go alone.”
“I do not table-talk,” Hal said, frowning, biting his lip and sighing in disappointment as he reviewed the cards. “And you don’t hate playing cards with me. I’m lots of fun.”
“Useless hand, eh, Hal?” Green said. “That’s alright, we’ll make do. Just don’t trump my aces.”
Lance Corporal Post had ducked around the nearest traverse a minute earlier for a cigarette. Not that the others would mind the smoke, but they’d probably beg him for a puff
until he ran out; not something he intended to do the night before a scrap.
As Bill turned the corner Post threw one hand in the air. “Okay, okay, I’ll share this one with you, but I’m not giving you any for later.”
“No it’s alright; I’ve got some of my own. I just wanted to get out of that game.”
“Old Jack taking too long to call again?”
“Yeah,” Bill said, lighting a cigarette. “And I had a lone hand that I didn’t get to make trump.”
“Shame. But it’s a game of chance you know.”
“And skill. Every now and then there’s a tough call that separates the men from the boys. Don’t want to get yourself euchred, and sometimes going alone is worth the risk for the extra points.”
Post shrugged. “Mostly chance. Gotta have the cards before you can play them. That Jack though,” he flicked the stub of his cigarette to the ground, lit another. “Yes, Sir, I’ll have to talk to Bailey about the old man. He’s just not fit anymore. I don’t mind the stories, but he’s so slow, and always complaining about a sore something or other. But we’ve been short-handed since, I don’t know, a long time. And when it comes to sleep-walking through army routine he does a damn fine job; just too damn slow.”
“It’s dangerous, Gary. For him and us. I mean, I know I’m useless after a few bottles of wine, but you’ve got to admit, I didn’t last this long on good looks.”
Post nodded his head in weary agreement. “I know that, Bill. But like I say it’s a matter of manpower. We’ll be getting reinforced for sure in a few days. I’m gonna try to stick Jack in with the casualties one way or another, or switch him up with a younger man from headquarters. In any case we’ve just got to get along with him a little while longer.”
A few minutes later, the entire section stood in a circle, leaning against the corrugated tin sheets that kept the walls of the trench from collapsing in on themselves through damp days and earth-shaking shellfire. A light rain was drizzling, dinging off the men’s helmets. It always seemed to rain before and after a battle. Hallicks would have preferred shells to rain. He was one of the few who would rather die quickly than live miserably.