“Move you dumb bastard!” Burns screamed as he threw the first bomb.
“It’s over. You’ll be killed.”
Burns ripped the pin from another grenade and let it fly. “I’m ordering you to leave now, Private.”
Lincoln frowned as he put one foot on the firing step. Pulling rank during a rout; it would have been hilarious if the two men weren’t moments away from being overrun.
“Burns, listen–”
“No, you listen. I’d rather go out leading a bayonet charge, but I’ll be damned if I run from my first and only battle. Get yourself to safety, you’ve done your bit, I need to do mine.”
“But it’s useless!”
“Go. And tell them what I did.”
There was no arguing with him; he was arrogant, proud, and bull-headed, but also the bravest man in the battalion. Lincoln pulled himself over the parapet and joined the shattered, pathetic ranks of exhausted soldiers. The men moved at a snail’s pace, while intermittent explosions rang out behind them, became fainter, then finally stopped. A fearful battle cry, cut short by gunshots, left the battlefield temporarily silent. The Canadians weren’t even halfway back to their lines when vengeful volleys of rifle fire began to thin their numbers, bringing down the wounded and unlucky.
“That’s it, they’re on the move,” Post said, as Canadians made their way towards them. “Let’s get going.”
Post pulled Bill to his feet and they began to make the last desperate dash to relative safety. The bark of a German machine-gun caused the two men to dive for cover behind a little mound of dirt that had inexplicably formed about fifty yards from the Canadian lines. They weren’t the only ones seeking cover there. Facedown and motionless, Old Jack lay sprawled across the ground, entrenching tool still gripped tightly in his right hand. Too tired for emotion, Post lay next to him, catching his breath.
“They didn’t get you did they, Gary?” Old Jack asked, raising himself to a sitting position and surveying no-man’s land.
Post’s heart skipped a beat as he rolled over towards the old man who he had assumed was dead, and shoved him prone again. “Stay down, Jack.”
Old Jack yawned. “What’s wrong, haven’t we won yet?”
“Not exactly, in fact the whole show was a– wait, have you been sleeping this whole time?”
“Well, not the whole time, I waited a few hours, maybe until around noon, twelve-thirty? I’m not sure exactly, but no one came for me so I must have dozed off.”
Bill pulled the canteen from Jack’s side and, finding it empty, slapped it dejectedly back into the other man’s gear.
“No one came for you? You got plugged?” Post asked, looking for a wound but not seeing any.
“Well, not exactly ‘plugged.’”
“Where? What happened?”
“My leg, I think it’s broken. Can’t put any weight on it so I dug in and waited for someone to come and get me, but nobody did. Hardly anyone came or went, just signallers, and they wouldn’t stop and help me.”
“I don’t see any blood; shot or shrapnel?” Post asked, inspecting both legs.
“Neither, I tripped and fell on that damned thing,” Jack replied, indicating a rock barely larger than a brick a few feet away.
Bill and Post burst into laughter as fleeing Canadians rushed past them. Jack, confused for the first few seconds soon decided that laughter was indeed contagious, and joined in.
“Here, Jack,” Post said, taking the old man’s equipment and rifle. “You won’t be needing this.”
“Hey, what about me?” Bill asked.
“Don’t worry, Bill, I’ll carry it back for you, then it’s all yours. I’ll scare up some gear for myself later. Now give me a hand with the old man.”
6
Just before dusk Post was shaken awake. It was Sergeant Bailey, looking exhausted but hopeful, and most importantly, alive. Bandoliers of ammunition were slung over both his shoulders. “Come on, Gary, help me get this lot up, stand-to.”
Post looked around. Sleeping privates, some with half-eaten tins of food next to them or still grasped in their hands, others crumpled up into balls, littered the trench. All had their rifles and equipment within arm’s reach. Post stumbled to his feet and slipped on the equipment he had taken off a wounded man. It didn’t fit him properly and he had fallen asleep without bothering to adjust it, the result being that his ammunition pouches sat too high, and his belt hung unbuckled, too short to wrap around his torso.
“Glad you made it through, Bailey. Hun nail?” Post asked.
“Thanks. Mmm, tastes like Kultur.”
“I heard you were with Eight Platoon, I was afraid you might have gotten hit. It’s good to see you, I mean really good.”
“You too, guess we were just lucky today. You know those guys in Eight are alright. Lots of new privates, but they really came together when their NCOs got hit. I told a few they were acting lances; probably be officers by the end of the month,” the sergeant said, handing off several bandoliers to Post and gently kicking Corporal McCloud awake, the way only an old friend could. “Come on Jimmy; get your section on their feet, stand-to and all that.”
McCloud’s eyes snapped open, in a moment he was standing and reaching for the bandoliers. “Okay, Sarnt’, I assume these are for me?”
“Yeah, take a few, I’m gonna go hand the rest out to Miller and Burns.”
Post and McCloud shared a knowing look; one that Bailey was far too familiar with.
“Miller got skewered, bad. Most of his section was killed too. Nobody’s seen Burns since we fell back, but it’s safe to say he’s gone,” McCloud said.
Bailey took a deep breath as his mind raced. “Lincoln and Bill Brown are acting lances.”
Post nodded his head in approval, proud that his men were considered the most capable.
McCloud shook his head. “We don’t have enough men left to command; we don’t need to appoint anyone just yet. Carter’s been playing corporal with the other two sections; just leave it at that for now.”
“One of these days I’ll just give you these damned stripes and we can cut the charade,” Bailey said.
“Better yet, Carter’s pips,” Post added.
“Hey, Gary, did Bill make it through alright?” McCloud asked hopefully.
“Did he make it through alright? Jimmy, the boy is fuckin’ bombproof!”
*
Bill leaned his rifle against the parapet, retrieved his canteen and slopped back a few mouthfuls of water, hoping a little hydration would relieve the headache he’d had since the explosion that had nearly killed him. It didn’t. “I wouldn’t put it past them for a night attack, they know we’re shorthanded.”
“But why would they bother?” Lincoln asked. “They saw how much of a fight we put up out there. I really doubt they want to risk another scrap. My Lord, you should have seen Burns, rest his soul. Stayed behind with a couple of hand grenades and covered the retreat. Anyone left alive probably owes it to him.”
“Still, what if they do attack?”
“No use chatting about it,” Hal mumbled into his sleeve, his head resting on his arms against the side of the trench. “If they come, they come, and we deal with them. If they don’t, we get to have a few hours sleep. So quit talkin’, and holler at me if I’m about to get killed.” He let out a long half-yawn half-sigh intended to end the conversation. “Fuuu-uck.”
Bill stretched, repositioning his body to imitate Hal’s relaxed pose, face buried in his arms. The men had been awake for less than five minutes and, although standing, were already asleep again. It had been a very long day.
*
A burst of machine-gun fire set the entire company into motion once more. It was a Lewis Gun; even in the pitch blackness that much was obvious from the familiar crack-crack-crack of .303 rounds. Another burst followed, then another. Calls for flares went out as the battalion stood-to-parapet once again, peering into the darkness, some firing their rifles at vague shapes, others shooting a
t nothing in particular. Ricochets sent sparks flying along the barbed wire, or else rebounded upwards, sizzled red hot for a moment, then went dark.
There were no muzzle flashes coming from no-man’s land. After a minute the firing died down, then stopped altogether. No shelling, no mortars, not even a lousy hand grenade; not much of an attack.
The darkness was unbroken as the first flare to go up began to whistle. Reaching its highest point the flare lit with the usual pop-whoosh, then began to descend, shining silently on the unbearable scene just yards from the Canadian trenches. It was Hallicks, his back across a belt of barbed wire, face lolling towards his stunned comrades, smoke drifting off the bright red holes in his khaki tunic, eyes wide but vacant. There wasn’t a German soldier in sight.
Bill never thought he would see the day Hal was killed. He was tough and practical: a survivor. Both men had become accustomed to seeing others dying and watching replacements join the battalion. It was their mutual survival that had made them such close friends, and as the reality of Hal’s death began to take hold of him, that bond of friendship grew stronger. Bill rubbed his face impotently, he wanted to scream but no sound came out; there was nothing to be done to remedy so great a tragedy.
The bright light fizzled out sooner than expected as Lincoln gave a quiet prayer. “Grant him light, happiness, and peace. Let him pass in safety through the gates of death, and live forever with–”
“Kevin, Bill,” Post said into the darkness, his section reduced to himself and two men. “Help me bring him in.”
Officially no soldier was authorized to go into no-man’s land without being ordered to do so by an officer. However, Lance Corporal Post wasn’t about to let an Original rot on the wire a few yards away. “Stand down, party going out,” he growled fiercely as the men departed.
Luckily the Germans didn’t seem interested in the debacle. Fatigue or perhaps compassion had kept them from sending up flares of their own, or firing blindly at the Canadian trenches.
For a few bursts of fire into the darkness, it had been astonishingly accurate. Hallicks was rife with gunshot wounds and blood ran freely to the ground as his comrades pulled him off the wire.
“Grab a leg each,” Post said.
Bill and Lincoln complied, grunting with exertion. It was a struggle to pull Hal off the wire, his uniform becoming ensnared each time his body shifted. Post wrapped his arms under Hal’s and across his chest, the dead man’s head against his stomach.
“Party coming in,” Post called, as what was left of his section returned to the Canadian lines.
They laid him on the bottom of the trench gently, not that it mattered, but when a body was still warm it was hard to treat it like a sack of potatoes.
Lincoln made the sign of the cross. “Why was he out there?”
“Maybe he heard a cry for help,” Bill offered, his voice absent of emotion, but ready to breakdown into rage or grief, whichever got hold of him first.
“But why didn’t he wake us up? Or call out? Why didn’t he just say ‘Don’t shoot’?”
Post knelt next to Hal. “Maybe he did and no one heard him.”
It seemed unlikely; wounded and stranded men had been trickling in without incident since before dusk. A Canadian accent was usually enough to convince a sentry, or failing that, the name of a well-known officer, or even just “Toronto.”
“Whatever the reason, you know what happens next.”
A dead man’s personal belongings were always sent home to his family. Of course anything the other men could use was kept: cigarettes, lighters, clean socks, and the like. Bill was already considering thieving his best friend’s scarf, no doubt tucked away in a kit bag somewhere behind the lines.
Lance Corporal Post sifted through Hal’s pockets and dumped the contents into the dead man’s steel helmet. From one pocket came identity discs, some with wedding bands and good luck talismans tied to them. Crumpled French banknotes and coins appeared from another.
“Hal. You poor dumb bastard,” Post whispered slowly.
It was probably two or three months pay altogether, collected no doubt from the same bodies the discs had come from.
“What is it?” Lincoln asked.
“Money. And cold meat tickets. Walsh WJ, Hodges DH, Schofield W, Wesley FJ, Anderson JS,” Post said aloud as he gently handled each disc. “Flynn M, Burns CR. A few more families that won’t have to go through the ‘Missing in action’ charade. They’ll know their boy is dead. No false hope.”
Bill sniffled and wiped his face with the sleeve of his tunic. Lincoln laid an arm on his shoulder; he knew it wasn’t just Hal that Bill was mourning.
Post flipped through the dead man’s paybook, a few family photographs shoved within. “What’s ‘al-lot-ment’?”
“It means his pay was being sent home,” Lincoln replied. “How much?”
“Thirty dollars a month, plus three dollars danger pay, that’s his wages,” Post replied. “Oh, here, twenty-five dollars every month.”
As a family man, Lincoln knew the rules of allotment. “That’s the most they’ll let you send. But why? He wasn’t married, didn’t have kids. I didn’t think so anyway.”
Post flipped back to the photos. A much younger, happier looking Hal was surrounded by an elderly couple, a middle-aged woman and two even younger children, a boy and a girl. “Looks like Hal was the man of the house. He never mentioned it.”
“He did to me,” Bill said. “And he pulled this same stunt at Sorrel, but swore me to secrecy. The money he sent home to his folks, said he won it playing Crown and Anchor. The identity discs he ditched at company headquarters.”
Post gathered Bill and Lincoln in close. “Nobody needs to know about this, and Bailey ain’t called the roll yet. We’ll say he was only returning from the attack now, the last man to come back. We heard him call out, but whoever was on that Lewis Gun got scared, opened fire anyway. I’ll make sure the money makes it to his family.”
“What about all this?” Bill asked, touching the jumble of identity discs and trinkets.
“It’ll go to their folks, like Hal intended,” Post said, then turned back to Hal’s lifeless body. “Fair play.”
“What about those medals you promised us, Post?” Lincoln asked. “The Military Medal doesn’t come with a cash gratuity, the Distinguished Conduct Medal does. I think I can guarantee Hal one, if Bill will write the citation, and we embellish your story about why he was out there.”
“Okay, let’s have it,” Post said.
“Hal and I were the only ones who saw Burns, just before he died; really I was the last one to see him. He stayed behind with a few grenades, covered our retirement. But we could say it was Hallicks; give him the credit. Say he was the last man to return, even had all those identity discs as proof. He waited until night, and gathered them up on his way back. I’ll be a witness, or maybe we can convince Carter to say he saw it all.”
“What do you say, Bill, can you write a citation?” Post asked.
“What about Burns? It sounds like he only did what he did to prove himself to us, and we’re going to take away what he deserves?” Bill asked.
“A posthumous medal won’t do him any good. It would for Hal’s family,” Post replied.
Bill wanted what was best for Hal’s family, but Burns deserved recognition too. “It’s your idea, Lincoln. Are you sure about this?”
Lincoln’s face was creased with agonizing contemplation. “Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats.”
“A sacrificial lamb,” Bill said.
Lincoln nodded.
“Alright, but before I write a citation, we better start spreading our story; gossip goes a long way. One more thing: after this, no more lies, no more secrets.”
The three men shook hands, committing themselves to one final falsehood.
Post emptied the money and identity discs into his own pockets and placed Hal’s helmet on Bill
’s head. “Send yours home as a souvenir, Bill. The Germans never could get Hal, his tin hat is even luckier than yours, as long as you don’t do anything stupid.”
Gently, he removed the cord from around Hal’s neck. “Hallicks, G.” There was no wedding ring or special trinket, not even a lousy souvenir pin. Post detached the dead man’s battalion collar badges and tied them to the discs. “I’m sorry it’s not more personal, but this’ll have to do. I’ll sell that watch and send the money home, plus that twenty-five I owe you, okay, Hal?”
Lincoln took the hand of his dead comrade in his own. “Save us some billets in heaven, Hal. God bless you.”
7
The next night the battalion lurched back into Albert, shoulders hunched, faces dirty, and spirits all but broken. In size it resembled an under-strength company. Sweat-soaked, mud-stained uniforms hung off the men as they wordlessly dispersed and headed towards their hovels in the brickfields just outside of the city. There would be no crowded sleeping quarters tonight. Carter, McCloud, and Post had all been ordered to report to B Company headquarters.
Bill had stumbled towards La Boot instead. His head was still hurting from the noise and concussion of the hand grenade that had nearly killed him. And not a second had gone by since Hal’s death that he didn’t wonder about and worry for him, alone in the void. He wanted nothing more than to forget the past few days, or better yet, wake up and find that they had only been a nightmare. But first he was going to get falling-down drunk.
The estaminet was empty, its most recent customers, men of the Eighth Battalion, having been sent forward to relieve the Third. Bill sat at the bar, tapping his boot against his stool. “Hey,” he called after a minute.
Madame’s daughter emerged from a backroom, surprised and happy to have customers, though soon disappointed to find the lone, dirty, stinking Canadian slouched over the bar.
“Whiskey, sil vous plaiz.”
La Fille hesitiated. “Bière ou de vin?”
Bill set a handful of French coins on the counter. “Come on, you remember me. Post’s friend, Bill. I know you have whiskey.”
La Fille counted up the money eagerly, then poured Bill a glass of whiskey. “How is Monsieur Lance Post?”
“Alive. And in one piece.”
“That is a great relief. Was it bad?”