Fromelles Anniversary: An Odyssey Books Bundle

Chapter 7

You get used to raiding, Harry thought; some blokes even liked it. It was better than crouching in a rotten wet trench all day, and then at night skulking back to the support and the reserve trench, and back to billets, and a few days’ rest, and then forward again. Round and round, week in and week out, and no one could say what was more dangerous, moving forward, moving back, or just sitting still. At least when you were raiding, you knew you had f**k all’s chance of getting through, and knowing your chances was better than not knowing them. But today he’d been buried twice, and that was too much. It wasn’t right.

You get used to raiding,There was watery mud up to his chin. The trick was not to swallow any. He stretched his right leg beneath him. The mud stirred like cold lumpy soup and he found some sort of purchase. He shoved hard but something in the jammy give of it made him hesitate. He tightened his lips and drove his foot into whatever—whoever—was underneath him. Likely it was O’Connor, the poor sod, who had been just behind him. Harry’s shoulders came clear, and then his right arm, stupidly clinging to the clotted rifle. It wasn’t so stupid after all. Eddie was there ahead of him, braced on the edge of the hole. He grabbed at both the rifle and Harry’s arm. A bit of pulling and straining and he was out, on his knees beside Eddie, retching like a poisoned fox. Their hands stayed crossed, each holding the other’s wrist, squeezing hard as if to make sure it was real. Easier than last time. Every bruise from his earlier ducking beat against Harry’s senses, reminding him how simply he could go under again. Another shell banged in nearby; Harry cringed, but Eddie just swayed with the earth’s shaking. The air was full of flying dirt like flocks of starlings. Harry let go of Eddie’s hand to wipe mud out of his eyes and only made it worse. He swore, more resigned than indignant.

Eddie took him by the shoulders. ‘Harry? You all right?’

Harry spat mud. His mouth tasted like a chook-house floor, thick with s**t. ‘Yeah. Thanks.’

‘O’Connor got it, I reckon.’ Eddie jerked his head to the right. Harry could just make out O’Connor’s torso, perversely lying intact on the edge of the depression.

Harry spat again. ‘I reckon.’

‘And the skipper copped it full-on.’

Harry tried to catch his breath and failed. He coughed before he could speak, grabbing again at Eddie’s arm. Eddie shoved a water bottle at him. Eventually, he ground out one word. ‘Robertson?’

‘Yeah. God, Harry, I thought you were dead.’

‘Bad, is he? Robertson?’

‘Dead.’

‘Shit.’ But somehow it didn’t seem real. ‘f**k, Eddie.’ He shook his head. His ears were full of mud; the usual roar of sounds was muffled, ragged, distant.

Another whizz-bang went over their heads. It landed some fifty yards behind them, but plunged so deep into the mud that it failed to explode. They looked at each other, shrugging, then ducked together as a fourth wail sounded overhead. This one did explode, but so far to the rear that they turned as one to check the field behind them. The greenish light of the flares picked out the scene in snatches, as though they were blinking between each startled view. No doubt about it. The boys were retreating, moving back in little crouched groups of two or three apiece, silhouetted against the dull promise of dawn. Alternately jogging and crawling, dodging around the bigger or slogging through the smaller shell holes gouged across the field, they were going to make it back to the trenches. If the trenches were still intact, thought Harry; that shelling was pretty close.

Eddie tugged his arm. ‘Better get going, eh?’

Harry hesitated. He looked over his shoulder again at the objective, the Boche strongpoint behind the wire stretched not so very far ahead of them, the wire that should have been cut by last night’s barrage and was still sneering at them, its barbed teeth bared. He felt all his wits dulled, all the sense gone out of him. ‘Robertson’s dead, you say?’

‘Yes, I said. Let’s go, will you? Come on.’

‘Where is he? Alex? Where is he?’

Eddie coughed, or laughed, it was hard to tell. His face was well-plastered with mud and Harry couldn’t read his expression. ‘He’s not here. Or maybe he is.’ Harry grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him a little. No doubt, Eddie was giggling. Maybe he’d copped a bit of shrapnel on the helmet. Harry had never seen him like this. ‘You’re maybe kneeling on him now,’ gasped Eddie between cackles. ‘I reckon he got it good. I’m sorry, Harry, but he’s blown to smithereens.’

‘Shit.’ Harry looked around. Surely there was something, anything, to show where the captain had died. This wasn’t right. Not right. Alex Robertson had also been buried, not many hours earlier, alongside him, up to their waists in reeking dirt. He’d grinned, Alex, a flash of white teeth, and together they’d dug and pulled and finally scrambled out onto firmer ground, Robertson with some quip about quicksand and the quick and the dead. And now, Eddie said, he was dead, shredded to pieces. Even so, there must be something of him left. But all Harry could see in the erratic glare of the shelling was mud—everything the same bruised, soggy colour. You couldn’t tell flesh from cloth from earth. O’Connor—what was left of him—could have been crafted from mud. Harry groaned, hunching round a hollow pain in his chest. Eddie, anxiety suddenly dousing his hysteria, put an arm around him.

‘Harry! Not hurt, are you?’

‘No. Pipe down, Eddie. Just give me a minute.’ Harry closed his eyes; it still didn’t seem possible. He leaned on Eddie’s shoulder while he caught his breath, and then he asked again. ‘Eddie, did you see it? Did you see Robertson get hit?’

‘I—what—of course I—well, if he didn’t get hit, where is he, then? Answer me that! He must be smashed to bits, he’d never leave us!’

Harry’s heart bounded, hopeful and sick at the same time. ‘No, wait. That shell hit O’Connor, right, and me. We were behind you. The skipper was in front.’

‘Yeah, but … but where is he, then?’

‘Remember what the old man said? Don’t stop for anything. If your mate falls, you go on.’ He nodded toward the German line. ‘I reckon Robertson’s up there.’

Eddie stared. ‘You reckon he went on alone?’

‘He wouldn’t be the first.’

‘f*****g hell. The man’s a moron.’

Harry would have clouted anyone else who dared to say that. He shook his head at Eddie. ‘He’s a man, at any rate. And we’re going after him.’ Mechanically he checked his gear: wire cutters, bombs, bayonet were all intact, if rather clogged. The firing mechanism on the rifle was fine, though, and a bayonet killed just as well dirty as clean. Better.

‘Harry, no, we should get back. Please, Harry.’ There was no sign of hilarity about Eddie now.

‘I don’t reckon Fritz can see us here. He reckons we’re all scattering on the way home.’

‘And so we f*****g well should be. Please, Harry.’

Another shell went past, far over their heads, and Harry turned fully to the front again. ‘Nah, you go, if you want to. I’m gonna chuck some bombs in that thing.’

‘Please! Don’t leave me, Harry. I can’t go back alone.’

‘What’s wrong? It’s no more dangerous than it was when we started. It’s the same f*****g raid, for Chrissake!’

‘Yeah, but—Harry, you nearly got killed! I thought I was going to pull you out dead.’

‘You pulled me out alive. You saved my life.’ Harry put his arms around Eddie and hugged him hard. ‘Come on. Let’s finish this. We can maybe pull Robertson out too,’ Harry said firmly. He knew Eddie would follow him, just as Harry would follow Alex Robertson, for as long as an inattentive God allowed.

He was right about their invisibility. They crept and crawled and sidled closer to the brick stronghold. It might have been an old farm building, maybe one of those elaborate pigeon coops. Now it housed a machine g*n and a crew of who knew how many b****y Huns. Harry and Eddie fell motionless whenever the erratic light seemed likely to reach them. They were so thick with mud, Harry figured, that they’d be taken for landscape. They covered twenty yards, thirty, forty, snaking their way a little to one side. Then daylight grew, and they had to go more slowly. The boom-spatter roar of the bombardment covered any sound they might make. Just as they came into throwing range of the Huns’ nest, the machine g*n started up, its maniacal chatter sweeping across the ground in front of the stronghold, a couple of feet above where Eddie and Harry lay motionless. It went on for a long time before Eddie lifted his head. Harry screamed at him, but Eddie crawled closer.

‘No, listen, Harry. It’s gone round the other side.’

Harry couldn’t tell that. His ears, he decided, had given up on him and wouldn’t give him any information about direction or volume. Fair enough, they were probably still full of dirt. He reached across and grasped Eddie’s forearm.

‘That’s good. Come on then, let’s get on with it. Reckon we could lob in a bomb from here?’

Eddie squinted. ‘Need to be a bit closer.’ He began to wriggle forward. He was the best throw in the section, their pride and envy. Eddie never needed a test throw. He had a good eye and a good arm. Harry always watched Eddie’s first throw before venturing one of his own. He judged the distance, among other things, by how far Eddie stuck his tongue out. All those years in the backyard hadn’t gone astray.

They crawled another ten yards. A loose, vicious strand of wire coiled through the mud, right in the way of a throwing arm. Harry pulled out his wire cutters and worked his way through it, at the minor cost of a sliced thumb. He looked at the blood mixing with the dirt on his hand and decided to let it bleed rather than suck up another mouthful of mud. His blood was cleaner than the s**t-filled dirt around this place.

Eddie crawled into position. The morning was now well advanced, and they were totally exposed. Harry began to have doubts about their chances of getting back alive. Damn. What had he brought Eddie into now? There was no sign of Alex Robertson. Maybe he hadn’t gone forward at all. But Harry didn’t think so. Alex was bound to be here somewhere. In the meantime, they had to have a go at that blasted machine-g*n crew. No point coming all this way to do nothing. He glanced across at Eddie and got a wink. They held still for minutes, making sure no one had seen them. Then Eddie lobbed the bomb.

It hit the upper frame of the ‘window’, a narrow slit from where the machine g*n’s muzzle slashed the air into deathly tatters with round after round of bullets. They held their breath. The bomb seemed to fall very slowly, but when it did, it fell inside.

Harry chucked his own first bomb. It hit the muzzle and bounced back toward them, though still yards away. Eddie got his second through the opening just as the roar of explosion, with its rush of foetid, fiery air reached them. Harry fell half-stunned again, and Eddie grabbed the bomb from his hand, primed it, and tried for the upper opening, the sniper hole above the machine-g*n crew.

A dozen grey soldiers seethed out of the pillbox, shooting wildly. Smoke and flame and unearthly shrieks. Harry lay on his side, blinking, and Eddie crouched low over him. With a bit of luck they wouldn’t be seen, even now. Even if they had to lie still until darkness, well, they would lie still until darkness. But they could get away. The game was not to move, whatever happened. Play dead. Play possum. Play mud. Keep Harry down.

Eddie was glad they were down, then, as an almighty crash rent the day. He lay close over Harry as mud and wire and lumps of concrete speared down on them. Something heavy landed on his outstretched hand; he concentrated on staying still. He couldn’t make any sense of the noise. Had their own artillery found the range of the stronghold? It didn’t seem likely. Maybe the Huns had a dump of ammunition in there, and the flame from the first bomb had set it off.

Everything grew still and quiet. Well, quiet just here. Harry, his face pressed close to Eddie’s, whispered to him to have a look. Carefully.

He took a long time over it. Then in a rush, he jumped to his feet. ‘Come on!’ he yelled.

Harry was slow scrambling up, stiff and bruised and surprised. Eddie was leaping over the tumbled ground toward the remnants of the pillbox. Harry followed with a little more caution, until he saw what Eddie had seen: Captain Robertson, leaning against the smoking wall of the stronghold, his pistol levelled at five enemy soldiers. Trouble was, he couldn’t keep them all under threat at once, and they were starting to advance on him. Time to turn the tables.

It was after midnight before they got back to their own line, and Major Moran was ropeable. The successful attack on the pillbox and the three prisoners they’d brought with them—one had slipped away during a rest, and another started calling out to a German patrol, so Harry had to silence him, which he did by shoving his bayonet through the bloke’s throat—didn’t seem to count against the loss of O’Connor. And the fact that Moran hadn’t been informed about the raid. He told off MacTierney to find someone to escort the prisoners back. Charlie saluted smartly and took them away, raising an eyebrow at the three culprits. Moran dragged Robertson into the dugout and roared a***e at him. Harry and Eddie he let go with a glare that told them they’d be remembered. The last thing they heard as they sloped off to find something to eat and get cleaned up a bit was Moran asking Alex what the f**k he expected from such a stunt, a b****y medal or a f*****g court-martial? They looked at each other and shrugged. Their sleep that night was deep and dreamless, a rare treasure.

16 August 1916

16 August 1916We’ve been doing some raiding and not too badly. Weather better. Food not bad especially in reserve. Good eggs, and onion pie which is better than you might think.

Doing a lot of carrying. There are snipers but mostly we go down at night. Duckboards and sandbags and flaming great sheets of iron, that’s not counting water and rolls of b****y wire.

Should have done building not butchering. I told Harry that and he said there’d be butchering soon enough if he had his way.

20 August 1916

20 August 1916Robertson and me and Harry captured three Huns. Robertson should get a medal. He is not afraid of anything.

Harry likes to go with him all the time, it’s dangerous.

Nothing from Cl.

19 September 1916

19 September 1916I had two weeks out of it because I hurt my hand in that raid, it turned out there was a broken bone. It all swelled up and I couldn’t use it. Must have been a brick dropped on it.

The hospital at the back is awful. I couldn’t sleep for the blokes screaming. They do a lot of surgery there. The worst ones go back to Blighty. There is a big graveyard there too and anyone who can walk has to go to burial services. I saw seventeen put in in three days. Glad to leave the place.

In support again now. It was good to get back. Harry is fine and didn’t do anything while I was away. He likes to go if they ask for a volunteer. Says it makes the war go quicker. He just hates getting bored.

Further north from where we were before. Took me ages to find the battalion. Trenches are better.

I got a letter from Cl. She doesn’t write much English.

I need to see her, but there’s no leave. Had a rotten dream about it last night. I dreamed her husband was there but then again he looked all bloated and waxy like the dead ones here look.

We have so many new blokes, I don’t know half of them. It has been a bad time for our section.

12 October 1916

12 October 1916Another near miss. Phil Jones, the last one with us from Gallipoli, he got knocked, just beside me.

Today Peter Cavanagh got back to us. He was in hospital a long time and then sent home and then he re-enlisted. He says home is all arguing over conscription and he couldn’t be bothered listening to it. We saw some of that in the papers. There are some funny poems about it in our brigade paper.

Harry says no one should come who doesn’t want to be here.

I said I don’t want to be here and Harry said, ‘That’s not the same.’ It made us laugh.

20 November 1916

20 November 1916It is the worst coldest winter. Mud and snow at the same time, the mud freezes. Never seen ground frozen like that before. We got some leave, two weeks. I am at Rebecque but Harry wouldn’t come, three’s a crowd. He went to London. Me and Claudelle just stay inside. She is big now with the baby. I reckon it will be soon, she says four weeks. She can still sit on my lap.

Funny thing, she doesn’t mind if anyone sees me, they don’t worry about her having a baby, they say ‘say la guerre’. We have soup and she makes some bread, not very good but there is no good flour. We had some brandy though.

Still no news about her husband. I wonder if our chaplain can help.

I don’t know what I wish for him, God help me. I hope he’s dead because he would miss her something awful. She never talks about him now.

If he is alive, then I don’t know how I can get her home.

29 November 1916

29 November 1916Claudelle wrote me, ‘The little angel here is, he is Séraphin, two days here is.’ I keep the note in my tunic pocket.

In reserve again. I wish I could get back soon.

They are doing this thing now, making some of us stay in reserve when our mates go into attack. It is to make sure we can start the battalion again if we have a wipe-out. I hate it, so do most of us. I reckon it makes you more windy not knowing what’s happening to the rest.

We always try to stay together.

November 1916, London

November 1916, LondonMy dear Nora,

Hoping this finds you well. I am posting this through the regular mail and hope it reaches you better than some of my other letters. Thanks for writing to my sister and asking about me.

We have been through some adventures over the summer. Well, they call it summer here but they don’t really know what summer is. Now it is getting very cold and we wear our heavy coats.

Eddie and I are both well and having some leave.

London is amazing. I like the Tower. There are people everywhere, all dressed up and going who knows where. There’s any number of parties to go to, bars and so on. Not everyone is friendly but I suppose they are sick of soldiers here.

I wish I could be home and talk to you.

Yours ever,

Harry.