It was the sound of a car motor which drew Henry out of his bunker. The heavy crank of an engine seemed foreign when, during those rare moments of respite from the enemies’ attentions, the heavy stomp of boots, the whinny of horses or barked orders from Sergeants were the usual sounds to disrupt the quiet.
Henry trudged down from the trench complex and peered onto what was left of the Rue D’Arras, the main road out of the city, which had been eaten up into the churn of a great network of trenches. Everything, for as far as the eye could see, to the north and south, had been consumed by support trenches, dugouts, officer posts, ammunition stores, latrines, feeding stations and hospitals. The front line – all that stood between Germany and the French coastline.
A four seater motorcar shuddered to a halt in the middle of the quickly disappearing road. It rattled itself to silence and out of it climbed a sandy haired officer, his belt drawn tight, exposing his middle aged spread, his pallid hungover complexion all the more sickly looking under the glaring sun. He stepped briskly and theatrically away from the vehicle, like an arriving dignitary, donning his cap to hide his liver spotted scalp from the light.
On seeing him, Henry swore quietly under his breath and marched out of the mishmash of tunnels to meet him.
“Major Pewter!” he called, trying to sound pleased to see his commanding officer.
“Lieutenant!” Pewter snapped back. “What the devil is going on here?” he demanded, whipping a glove from his hand and giving the impression he was about to strike the junior officer with it.
“What’s what, sir?” asked Henry, a dread clutching at his throat.
“What’s this I hear about you disobeying orders?”
“Disobeying orders, sir?”
“You heard me. Moving forward, when you were told to defend our position?”
“Well, I …”
“Never mind about that. Why the blazes aren’t you further up the field?”
“Up the field, sir?”
“I heard you were at Fampoux?” Pewter scowled, pulling off his second glove. “Why are you piddling around here?”
The direction and ferocity of the questioning muddled Henry’s thinking. He flinched and rubbed his forehead. “We’re waiting for patrols, sir,” he replied hesitantly, and then stood to attention to give a more assured performance.
“Patrols?” retorted Pewter, spitting the words contemptuously. “I heard on good authority that you’d taken the German front line. Why aren’t you in the blasted thing?” Henry wavered and the Major strode past him, diving into the confusion of the trenches. Immediately, Henry hurried after him.
“Complications, sir!” he called.
The Major stopped and put his cold eye onto Henry. He was tired and he was hungover. He’d been humiliated back in Arras by that woman. No one ever turned down his advances. From what he’d been told after his early morning enquiries, she’d gone home with the Lieutenant Colonel. The dislike he already felt towards his debonair senior officer had been further deepened by envy of this latest sexual conquest. He had a good mind to write home to the Lieutenant Colonel’s wife and spill the beans, no matter how bad the form. The man was a fool. They all were fools, especially the senior officers under whom he had to serve. They tested his patience at the best of times, the senior officers. He was certainly not in the mood to be disappointed by one of the junior ones.
“I don’t give a damn about complications, Lieutenant. Either you’ve taken the trench or you’ve not taken the trench. This is war, Lieutenant. It’s black or white. Live or die. Win or lose. There is no third option.” He turned and marched onwards into the labyrinth of the trench complex. “Pray to God, Frost, that the trench is not lost.”
“There was no counter-attack by the Germans,” Henry added quickly, as a means to reassure the Major, hurrying after him, like a servant keen to accommodate a master. “It’s been quiet, all night. There’s been nothing. Nothing at all. No noise. No movement. Nothing. There’s nothing for as far as we’ve been able to glimpse.”
“What do you mean, ‘nothing’, Lieutenant?” Pewter hissed, marching with purpose and speed. He recalled to himself the words of his previous commanding officer in South Africa: “March with purpose. Fuck with purpose. And when you kill, kill with purpose.”
“Exactly that, sir. Nothing. There’s nothing there. It seems the enemy have been obliterated.”
The Major’s ears pricked up at the word ‘obliterated’. He liked obliteration, especially when it involved the enemy. There’d been far too little obliteration, at least as far as the enemy was concerned, for his liking. A breakthrough in his area might yield results, not least in possible promotion for him. But Pewter knew he had to be realistic. Face facts. This was war. The enemy didn’t just vanish.
“Obliterated is a bold word, Lieutenant. Clarify.”
Henry, as briskly as he could, explained what they found, or more to the point hadn’t found, in the trench.
“And you say there was no barrage? The scene you describe would explain the devastation you found.”
“There was no barrage, sir,” Henry insisted, “not from us.” He shivered to think of what might have taken place in those dark tall trenches. He thought it wise not to mention what the German Corporal had muttered, as he’d fallen into Henry’s arms.
Pewter chortled and swept back what was left of his thinning hair with his hand. His pulse raced. He liked what he was hearing, mystery or not, as to the enemy’s disappearance. His main concern now was getting into the trench. That was the key objective, the only objective. Why on earth Frost hadn’t got his men into the trench and entrenched them there, the Major didn’t know. But, so too, he recognised that Frost’s decision to pull back might have played well into his own hands. Whilst British units to the north and French to the south were battling tooth and nail to take tiny portions of ground from the Germans, Pewter might now be the officer giving the final order to secure an entire trench and village. All that and without even firing a round! It was known military policy to raid a trench and then pull back. Frost’s decision to have done exactly that might have proved delightfully fortuitous for the Major.
“We need to get into that trench, Lieutenant,” Pewter announced, “and then hold it!” he warned, indicating with a finger.
“Yes, sir.”
“You say you have patrols coming back?”
“Imminently, sir, yes. They were sent out at first –”
“Good. Hopefully their news will be promising. If it proves to be, we’ll move the entire contingent of troops forward, perhaps even into Fampoux itself. Intelligence maps show the Hun trench network feeds directly from the village. If they’ve left the trenches, they might have left the village.”
“Yes, sir. That’s our impression, sir.”
The Major slapped a glove into his hand and gave a short cheer.
“By jove, Lieutenant,” he chuckled, “I think I might be making some progress in this war at last!”
They swept around a bend in the trench, dug wider to provide temporary accommodation for the injured brought back from the front line. It was here, in this chamber of chalk and mud, that they would be assessed and granted a break from the killing or be sent back for immediate service. Along one wall, the six Germans taken from their trench the previous night sat on a long bench, silent and numbed, covered under blankets, vacant stares onto the grey brown of the earth or the steam trails rising from their mugs of soup.
Immediately Pewter froze and glared, the veins in his temple pulsing. “By all that is holy in the world, who are these people?” he hissed, catching sight of their soft pillbox hats and German uniforms beneath the blankets.
“These soldiers … these prisoners,” Henry corrected, swallowing and pursing his lips, “they’re the only survivors that we’ve so far been able to find from the trench. Thought they might –”
“Yes, but what are you doing with them? That’s what I want to know?”
“We thought they might be able to provide useful information,” Henry lied.
“And why, in heaven’s name, are you feeding them?” the Major demanded, kicking a mug of soup from one of the soldier’s fingers and wrenching the blanket away from him. The soldier yelped and hung on to it, as if it was his only possession in the world. Pewter lunged forward and struck him hard in the face with the back of his hand, bloodying the prisoner’s nose. The prisoner cowered pathetically, guarding his face, his head down, a childlike whimpering coming out of him, whilst the others sprang to their feet, howling and gathering themselves into a tight group. They drew their arms firmly around them, as if protecting themselves from another blow.
“There’s no contingency for taking prisoners, Frost.”
“But sir,” Henry replied, looking at the Major and then back to the pathetic huddle of figures, “we couldn’t leave them where we found them?”
“No, precisely,” Pewter agreed, taking out his revolver and levelling it at them.
Without pause, Pewter pulled the trigger. The first round shattered the silence, sending the revolver vaulting back into the Major’s hand. The German with the bloodied nose collapsed backwards, his head snapping to the side, showering blood over the wall and on the prisoners behind him. His face had been blown clean open, become a flaccid wrap of skin like a sagging door to his skull.
Pewter fired again. Another prisoner, one making an infernal racket of moans and wails, dropped to the floor, half of his head blown clean off. Henry knew he was pleading for the Major to stop, but he couldn’t make himself heard above the thunderous clap of the Major’s pistol.
Pewter fired a third round, blowing a blackened crimson hole clean through the eye socket of the Corporal Henry had comforted. Without pause he fired again and again, until only a single German remained, stumbling over his fallen colleagues, screaming and pleading with bewilderment and pain, his hands held up in prayer and for mercy. Pewter levelled the smoking revolver at the soldier’s forehead and pulled the trigger.
The gun clicked.
“Bloody thing!” he cursed. He pulled the trigger again. The cylinder clicked over empty.
“Sergeant,” said Pewter, spotting Holmes shielding himself tight to the far side of the trench. He turned his eye back onto the German and drove the side of the empty revolver into his face. He went down with a grunt in a shower of blood and broken teeth. “Kill him.” He stomped away, holstering his revolver and muttering vaguely to himself. “Lieutenant Frost!” he called sharply over his shoulder. “A word, in my headquarters, if you please.”
There was little which surprised Henry after a month on the front line, but the speed by which normality returned to the trench after the flash of violence almost choked him. The cries and clamour of the pistol shots were almost immediately replaced with the distant muffle of chatter and the labour of the digging crews, the mutter of soldiers as they passed, the bright cheer of a laugh somewhere in the trench depths.
Henry stared at the bloodied jumble of bodies and the German sprawled on the trench floor, clutching at his broken teeth and weeping. He was aware of Sergeant Holmes organising the disposal of the bodies around him, leading away the distraught figure of the last remaining soldier. But he didn’t realise he was alone until a passing Tommy interrupted his private thoughts and asked if he was okay. He nodded and closed his eyes, allowing the reverberations of the violence to pass out of him.
Exhaustion and anger hit him like an army transport train. He fought hard against the urge to weep, drawing a shaking hand up under his nose to fight back against his emotions. He remembered his rank and his officer training, and straightened himself, brushing himself down briskly and tugging at his uniform. But he never remembered being taught how to act during such times at officer training. He swallowed hard on his anger through gritted teeth, before taking firm strides away.
Major Pewter had reached his bunker by the time Henry sought him out. He turned from his desk when Henry entered the dugout, adorned with an elegance and style befitting his class back in Blighty. In his left hand he held a solid cut glass tumbler of amber liquid, in his right a square glass decanter.
“Ah, Lieutenant!” he called, chirpily. “I wondered where you’d got to. Whisky?” he asked, pouring a handsome measure into a tumbler on the desk.
“Thank you, sir, no,” Henry replied, flatly.
“Nonsense.” replied Pewter, setting down the decanter and picking up the freshly filled glass, which he thrust into Henry’s hand. He turned and looked for his favourite chair, placing himself slowly into it. “It must be said, Lieutenant, I have the most frightful of headaches this morning. Come on! Drink up, for God’s sake, Frost,” he demanded, noticing that Henry stood unmoving in the middle of the dugout. “You look like you’ve lost the bloody war!” He sat back and crossed his legs, sweeping the wisps of hair across his scalp whilst he sipped at his whisky. He grimaced and immediately wondered if he’d made an error in judgement, choosing to drink so early in the morning after last night. “Come on, take a bloody seat, Frost,” Pewter insisted, indicating a chair opposite him, his tone growing as cold as Henry’s demeanour. “Sit, before you fall down. You look half done in.”
“I am,” replied Henry. “Sir,” he added, to bring ratification to his exhaustion and grievance.
“Well, take a bloody seat then, you fool!” Pewter cried, waving at the empty chair. “Can’t have you collapsing, can we?” Henry begrudgingly stepped forwards and sank into it. To sit in the presence of the Major ran contrary to everything Henry believed in but he could also feel his legs rejoice at the weight being taken from them.
The Major drank deeply from his glass, his eyes firmly set on the officer opposite.
“It’s been a terrific few hours,” he announced. His eyes were bright but there was coolness within them, like a sharp winter’s frost. “We need to capitalise on these successes. Push on. You know, back there,” he said, waving absently. “That nonsense, with the Hun.”
“The prisoners.” Henry replied.
“The enemy,” Pewter corrected. “I didn’t like what I saw there, Frost. Really shouldn’t have happened, Lieutenant. We can’t afford to take prisoners in this war. Jerry wouldn’t do the same to us, we shouldn’t with them. We have enough of a challenge ahead of us as it is without taking half of the bloody German army into our care. Understand?”
Henry looked into the corner of the bunker.
“You’ve got a good heart, Lieutenant, but you’re not here for your kindness. Consider hardening yourself up. You’re not at Eton now, Frost.”
“Winchester, Major,” Henry corrected. How, his college seemed a world away to him now.
“Crikey, no wonder you’re soft,” Pewter retorted. He allowed himself a smile but, as soon as the warmth appeared, his features hardened again: “Don’t let it happen again,” he warned. “Understood?”
Henry nodded, directing his eyes briefly towards the Major and then casting them aside.
“Good. Now,” said Pewter, draining his glass and stepping over to the sideboard to refill it. He felt mildly revived by the alcohol. A noise at the entrance to the dugout drew both of them to it.
“Excuse me, Lieutenant Frost, Major Pewter,” said a soldier, ducking into the narrow mouth of the bunker.
“Stevens!” Henry called, climbing out of his chair.
“There’s no one in the trenches. Looks like they’ve retreated back beyond Fampoux, sir.”
“Excellent!” called Pewter, setting down his glass and striding into the centre of the room. “Seems like you’ve been let off the hook, Lieutenant!” he said, accusatorially. He looked at the soldier at the entrance to the dugout. “Go on, push off now,” he ordered, shooing him with a hand. The Major switched his eyes, enflamed with excitement, back towards Henry. “Let’s get over to Fampoux and secure it without delay! It’s a big gain. We should expect a retaliation from the bastards.”
“Yes sir,” replied Henry gloomily. His men were exhausted, battered and frayed. Even deserted as the village seemed, he felt Fampoux was a stretch too far, knowing the Germans would make them work hard to keep it.
“Hopefully we won’t live to regret your decision not to have pushed on last night. I don’t quite know what is going on out there at Fampoux, but it sounds like what was discovered in that trench was nothing short of a miracle. And you can put that in the unit’s diary. The miracle of Fampoux!” he barked and chortled into his whisky.