The night was as black as coal when the British patrol went forward from Fampoux and stole silently, breathlessly, into the land beyond. Above the six men, crouched close to the churned and pitted ground, the oval moon flitted in and out behind thick clouds, its weak silvery light unable to penetrate the gloom of the land below.
There was never any question of the squad not accepting the task of making a forward patrol out of Fampoux. Despite having only spent a few hours in the place, many already subscribed to the fact that there was something unsettling about the village. They couldn’t agree on how or why the Germans had retreated from it almost willingly, not fighting hard for every square inch of the invaluable location. There was the cloying stench of death which hung heavy within it, as if the slaughter of the war and the trenches before it had sunk into the very earth. And there was the silence, as if an almost aberrant veil had been drawn over the village suffocating the life within it.
The men had talked, as all soldiers do as they work and to fend off boredom, about what new weapon had been created to have secured such an easy victory and at such a cost to the enemy. They shivered and trusted that whatever it was never fell into German hands. The reek of the recent slaughter and the prevailing sense of doom about that place unsettled every soldier. When the request was made for a patrol to leave the village and examine the way ahead, volunteers were quick to be found.
“Can’t see a bloody thing, sir!” hissed one of the soldiers, as he felt his way forward blindly in the dark.
“Keep your bloody voice down!” the Lance Corporal snapped back under his breath. “Neither can I but I’m not harking on about it.”
“How far are we going, sir?” another called, putting his hand on something soft in the dark and retracting it quickly.
“Bloody hell!” the Lance Corporal cursed, pushing back his cap. “Do you want to go back to that village?”
“No, sir!”
“Then keep your bloody trap shut!”
“Just asking, that’s all.”
“We’ll go out for an hour or so.”
“Have a good look about. See how far the Hun have pulled back. Come on, this is bloody ridiculous,” he said, standing up and peering east, “crawling around in the dirt. We’re through the barbed wire. Let’s go forward on foot. It’s so dark. No one’ll see us.” He turned back to peer at his men through the blackness. “If a flare goes up, remember to drop.”
“If a flare goes up and they follow it with a machine gun, we might not need to worry about remembering to drop.”
“Alright, keep it bloody shut.”
They walked on, shuffling figures in the darkness, tripping over unseen objects on the ground or stumbling sideways into holes and craters. There was a smell of mud and iron in the air. Behind them they could see an occasional light twinkle and then go out.
Every now and then, further along the front, the far skyline flared orange and red and the low thump of a barrage followed a little time later. A portion of the distant horizon in the south caught a dull yellow and burnt for a longer period, maybe a building burning from the onslaught.
“Poor buggers,” one of the soldiers mumbled, glumly.
“Shut up, Jones,” another hissed back.
The youngest of the soldiers listened to the sounds of the night, the rustle of uniform and leather belts, the soft jangle of strapping from the soldiers around him. Far behind him, he was sure he could hear the sound of conversation coming from the lights of Fampoux. It made him feel relieved. He turned his ear to the darkness ahead to see if he could hear anything.
A wolf howled somewhere in the night.
Ahead of them, the Lance Corporal raised a hand and dropped to his knees. The line of soldiers followed his lead, one after the other.
“Didn’t know there were bloody wolves in France!” someone said.
“What is it, sir?” the second in the line asked.
“Thought I heard something,” the Lance Corporal whispered.
They stayed there, crouched tight to the ground, for what seemed an eternity to the youngest soldier. When his legs started to ache, he sank onto his knees and turned over to sit on his backside, rifle across his lap. He looked up at the sky and thought about his sweetheart Mary back in England. He was surprised how little he had missed her. But then, he’d not had much time to sit and think about home since he’d been out here. Digging trenches, doing drill, marching for days and days, cleaning rifles, keeping sentry, staying awake nights on end, trying not to fall asleep during sentry duty, seemed to get in the way of thinking fondly of home. He was glad of it, too. He felt so far from anywhere here. He knew if he thought too much about home, he’d get sick.
At the head of the line, the Lance Corporal heard a noise again and asked, “Did you hear that?” to the nearest of the soldiers behind him.
“Hear what, sir?”
“That noise. Something moving about, up ahead.”
“No sir,” the soldier replied, discernibly quieter.
The Lance Corporal bent his head to the side and listened harder.
“I’m going forward,” he said. “Stay here. I won’t be long.”
“But sir!” the second soldier in the line said, clutching blindly at the Lance Corporal’s heel. “What if …”
“I won’t be long. Just having a look up ahead.”
“But if you don’t come back?” the Private asked awkwardly.
“If I don’t come back, you take the men back to the trench.”
“Very good sir.”
The Lance Corporal rose and shambled his way forward. Within a couple of steps he was lost in the black of night.
“What’s going on?” someone asked.
“It’s Lance,” the Private whispered back. “Thinks he heard something. He’s going to have a look.”
“Bloody great. Just what we need. Jerry in the dark.”
The Lance Corporal stepped on, keeping bent and low, little steps in the dirt in the darkness. He stopped and sank to his knees, listening intently, and then rose and went forward again, his rifle gripped tight in his hands. He stopped once more, sinking down on his haunches. He looked back to the way he had come, entombed in sheer black. He swallowed and for the first time worried about finding his men again. But it was quiet and he knew could find them by calling out to them if need be. After all, there seemed to be nothing else in this God-forsaken place.
He turned back towards where he thought the enemy to be and screamed as the beast launched itself at him from the dark, ripping the windpipe and sound from out of him.
The Private pricked up his ears and peered into the gloom. As he listened, he was sure he could hear something, like the dull crunching of stones, the snap of sticks.
Something was there.
“Go back!” he hissed, standing and pushing out at the soldier behind him. “Quick! Go back! Fucking go back!” he called, his voice rising with his fear.
The soldier behind him stumbled blindly onto his knees and then up, reaching out and pushing at the soldier behind him. “We’re going back,” he called. “Come on! Orders from the front! We’re going back!”
The bumbling, ragged line turned and began to trot back down the route they had come.
Something came out of the east and fell upon the Private at the rear of the line, vast bloodied jaws clamping hard into the crook between his neck and shoulder. The soldier cried out as the jaws tore a great chunk from his body, taloned hands grappling around his middle, holding him firm. A second bite took his head from his body, gushing warm gore over his assailant.
The remaining soldiers could hear the feral sounds, the clamouring of excited animal feeding, like a pack of hounds around a captured fox, but they didn’t turn round. Now they were sprinting, charging headlong into the dark, tripping and falling into the dirt and detritus of No Man’s Land, picking themselves up and running again, only to fall moments later. They were crying too, calling out for the attention of the trench ahead, for those there to help, to send up flares to guide their way forward.
But no flares were sent and in seconds the soldiers’ cries were silenced.
The creatures fell upon them greedily.