“Oi, boyo!” The shout came from behind me and was urgent enough to stop me. I turned to see the small man in khaki weaving and jinking his way across no-man’s-land, one hand held high above his head carrying the white handkerchief. “Oi, boyo! Where you going? Hang on a bit. You’re going the wrong way, see.”
The two men who were coming towards me could not have been more different. The one in grey was the taller of the two and as he came nearer I could see his face was lined and creased with years. Everything about him was slow and gentle under his ill-fitting uniform. He wore no helmet, but instead the peakless cap with the red band I knew so well sitting carelessly on the back of his head. The little man in khaki reached us, out of breath, his face red and still smooth with youth, his round helmet with the broad rim fallen askew over one ear. For a few strained, silent moments the two stood yards apart from each other, eyeing one another warily and saying not a word. It was the young man in khaki who broke the silence and spoke first.
“Now what do we do?” he said, walking towards us and looking at the German who stood head and shoulders above him. “There’s two of us here and one horse to split between us. ’Course, King Soloman had the answer, didn’t he now? But it’s not very practical in this case, is it? And what’s worse, I can’t speak a word of German, and I can see you can’t understand what the hell I’m talking about, can you? Oh hell, I should never have come out here, I knew I shouldn’t. Can’t think what came over me, and all for a muddy old horse too.”
“But I can, I can speak a little bad English,” said the older man, still holding out his cupped hand under my nose. It was full of black bread broken into pieces, a titbit I was familiar enough with but usually found too bitter for my taste. However I was now too hungry to be choosy and as he was speaking I soon emptied his hand. “I speak only a little English – like a schoolboy – but it’s enough I think for us.” And even as he spoke I felt a rope slip slowly around my neck and tighten. “As for our other problem, since I have been here the first, then the horse is mine. Fair, no? Like your cricket?”
“Cricket! Cricket!” said the young man. “Who’s ever heard of that barbarous game in Wales? That’s a game for the rotten English. Rugby, that’s my game, and that’s not a game. That’s a religion that is – where I come from. I played scrum-half for Maesteg before the war stopped me, and at Maesteg we say that a loose ball is our ball.”
“Sorry?” said the German, his eyebrows furrowed with concern. “I cannot understand what you mean by this.”
“Doesn’t matter, Jerry. Not important, not any more. We could have settled all this peaceful like, Jerry – the war, I mean – and I’d be back in my valley and you’d be back in yours. Still, not your fault I don’t suppose. Nor mine, neither, come to that.”
By now the cheering from both sides had subsided and both armies looked on in total silence as the two men talked together beside me. The Welshman was stroking my nose and feeling my ears. “You know horses then?” said the tall German. “How bad is his wounded leg? Is it broken do you think? He seems not to walk on it.”
The Welshman bent over and lifted my leg gently and expertly, wiping away the mud from around the wound. “He’s in a mess right enough, but I don’t think it’s broken, Jerry. It’s a bad wound though, a deep gash – wire by the look of it. Got to get him seen to quick else the poison will set in and then there won’t be a lot anyone could do for him. Cut like that, he must have lost a lot of blood already. Question is though, who takes him? We’ve got a veterinary hospital somewhere back behind our lines that could take care of him, but I expect you’ve got one too.”
“Yes, I think so. Somewhere it must be, but I do not know exactly where,” the German said slowly. And then he dug deep in his pocket and produced a coin. “You choose the side you want, ‘head or tail’, I think you say. I will show the coin to everyone on both sides and everyone will know that whichever side wins the horse it is only by chance. Then no one loses any pride, yes? And everyone will be happy.”
The Welshman looked up admiringly and smiled. “All right then, you go ahead, Jerry, you show them the coin and then you toss and I’ll call.”
The German held the coin up in the sun and then turned a full slow circle before spinning it high and glinting into the air. As it fell to the ground the Welshman called out in a loud, resonant voice so that all the world could hear, “Heads!”
“Well,” said the German, stooping to pick it up. “That’s the face of my Kaiser looking up at me out of the mud, and he does not look pleased with me. So I am afraid you have won. The horse is yours. Take good care of him, my friend,” and he picked up the rope again and handed it to the Welshman. As he did so he held out his other hand in a gesture of friendship and reconciliation, a smile lighting his worn face. “In an hour, maybe, or two,” he said, “we will be trying our best again each other to kill. God only knows why we do it, and I think he has maybe forgotten why. Goodbye, Welshman. We have shown them, haven’t we? We have shown them that any problem can be solved between people if only they can trust each other. That is all it needs, no?”
The little Welshman shook his head in disbelief as he took the rope. “Jerry, boyo, I think if they would let you and me have an hour or two out here together, we could sort out this whole wretched mess. There would be no more weeping widows and crying children in my valley and no more in yours. If the worse came to the worst we could decide it all on the flip of a coin, couldn’t we now?”
“If we did,” said the German with a chuckle. “If we did it that way, then it would be our turn to win. And maybe your Lloyd George would not like that.” And he put his hands on the Welshman’s shoulders for a moment. “Take care, my friend, and good luck. Auf Wiedersehen.” And he turned away and walked slowly back across no-man’s-land to the wire.
“Same to you, boyo,” the Welshman shouted after him, and then he too turned and led me away back towards the line of khaki soldiers who began now to laugh and cheer with delight as I limped towards them through the gap in the wire.
Thomas Peaceful and his brother Charlie are on the battlefields of the First World War, trying to stay alive in the horror of the trenches …
he first snow of winter sees us back in the trenches. It freezes as it falls, hardening the mud – and that certainly is a blessing. Providing there is no wind we are no colder than we were before and can at least keep our feet dry. The guns have stayed relatively silent in our sector and we have had few casualties so far: one wounded by a sniper, two in hospital with pneumonia, and one with chronic trench foot – which affects us all. From what we hear and read we are in just about the luckiest sector we could be.
Word has come down from Headquarters, Wilkie says, that we must send our patrols to find out what regiments have come into the line opposite us and in what strength – though why we have to do that we do not know. There are spotter planes doing that almost every day. So most nights now, four or five of us are picked, and a patrol goes out into no-man’s-land to find out what they can. More often than not they find out nothing. No one likes going, of course, but nobody’s been hurt so far, and you get a double rum ration before you go and everyone wants that.
My turn soon comes up as it was bound to. I’m not particularly worried. Charlie’s going with me, and Nipper Martin, Little Les and Pete – “the whole skittle team”, Charlie calls us. Wilkie’s heading the patrol and we’re glad of that. He tells us we have to achieve what the other patrols have not. We have to bring back one prisoner for questioning. They give us each a double rum ration, and I’m warmed instantly to the roots of my hair, to the toes of my feet.
“Stay close, Tommo,” Charlie whispers, and then we are climbing out over the top, crawling on our bellies through the wire. We snake our way forward. We slither into a shell hole and lie doggo there for a while in case we’ve been heard. We can hear Fritz talking now, and laughing. There’s the sound of a gramophone playing – I’ve heard all this before on lookout, but distantly. We
’re close now, very close, and I should be scared witless. Strangely, I find I’m not so much frightened as excited. Maybe it’s the rum. I’m out poaching again, that’s what it feels like. I’m tensed for danger. I’m ready for it, but not frightened.
It takes an eternity to cross no-man’s-land. I begin to wonder if we’ll ever find their trenches at all. Then we see their wire up ahead. We wriggle through a gap, and still undetected we drop down into their trench. It looks deserted, but we know it can’t be. We can still hear the voices and the music. I notice the trench is much deeper than ours, wider too and altogether more solidly constructed. I grip my rifle tighter and follow Charlie along the trench, bent double like everyone else. We’re trying not to, but we’re making too much noise. I can’t understand why no one has heard us. Where are their sentries, for God’s sake? Up ahead I can see Wilkie waving us on with his revolver. There is a flickering of light now coming from a dugout ahead, where the voices are, where the music is. From the sound of it there could be half a dozen men in there at least. We only need one prisoner. How are we going to manage half a dozen of them?
At that moment the light floods into the trench as the dugout curtain opens. A soldier comes out shrugging on his coat, the curtain closing behind him. He is alone, just what we are after. He doesn’t seem to see us right away. Then he does. For a split second the Hun does nothing and neither do we. We just stand and look at one another. He could so easily have done what he should have done, just put up his hands and come with us. Instead he lets out a shriek and turns, blundering through the curtain back into the dugout. I don’t know who threw the grenade in after him, but there is a blast that throws me back against the trench wall. I sit there stunned. There is screaming and firing from inside the dugout, then silence. The music has stopped.
By the time I get in there Little Les is lying on his side shot through the head, his eyes staring at me. He looks so surprised. Several Germans are sprawled across their dugout, all still, all dead – except one. He stands there naked, blood spattered and shaking. I too am shaking. He has his hands in the air and is whimpering. Wilkie throws a coat over him and Pete bundles him out of the dugout. Frantic now to get back we scrabble our way up out of the trench, the Hun still whimpering. He is beside himself with terror. Pete is shouting at him to stop, but he’s only making it worse. We follow the captain through the German wire and run.
For a while I think we have got away with it, but then a flare goes up and we are caught suddenly in broad daylight. I hurl myself to the ground and bury my face in the snow. Their flares last so much longer than ours, shine so much brighter. I know we’re for it. I press myself into the ground, eyes closed. I’m praying and thinking of Molly. If I’m going to die I want her to be my last thought. But she’s not. Instead I’m saying sorry to Father for what I did, that I didn’t mean to do it. A machine gun opens up behind us and then rifles fire. There is nowhere to hide, so we pretend to be dead. We wait till the light dies and the night is suddenly black again. Wilkie gets us to our feet and we go on, running, stumbling, until more lights go up, and the machine gunners start up again. We dive into a crater and roll down crashing through the ice into the watery bottom. Then the shelling starts. It seems as if we have woken up the entire German army. I cower in the stinking water with the German and Charlie, the three of us clinging together, heads buried in one another as the shells fall all about us. Our own guns are answering now, but it is little comfort to us. Charlie and I drag the Hun prisoner out of the water. Either he is talking to himself or he’s saying a prayer, it’s difficult to tell.
Then we see Wilkie lying higher up the slope, too close to the lip of the crater. When Charlie calls out to him he doesn’t reply. Charlie goes to him and turns him over. “It’s my legs,” I hear the captain whisper. “I can’t seem to move my legs.” He’s too exposed up there, so Charlie drags him back down as gently as he can. We try to make him comfortable. The Hun keeps praying out loud. I’m quite sure he’s praying now. “Du lieber Gott,” I hear. They call God by the same name. Pete and Nipper are crawling over towards us from the far side of the crater. We are together at least. The ground shudders, and with every impact we are bombarded by showers of mud and stone and snow. But the sound I hate and fear most is not the sound of the explosion – by then it’s done and over with, and you’re either dead or not. No, it’s the whistle and whine and shriek of the shells as they come over. It’s the not knowing where they will land, whether this one is for you.
Then, as suddenly as the barrage begins, it stops. There is silence. Darkness hides us again. Smoke drifts over us and down into our hole, filling our nostrils with the stench of cordite. We stifle our coughing. The Hun has stopped his praying, and is lying curled up in his overcoat, his hands over his ears. He’s rocking like a child, like Big Joe.
“I won’t make it,” Wilkie says to Charlie. “I’m leaving it to you to get them all back, Peaceful, and the prisoner. Go on now.”
“No, sir,” Charlie replies. “If one goes we all go. Isn’t that right, lads?”
That’s how it happened. Under cover of an early morning mist we made it back to our trenches, Charlie carrying Wilkie on his back the whole way, until the stretcher bearers came for him in the trench. As they lifted him, Wilkie caught Charlie by the hand and held it. “Come and see me in hospital, Peaceful,” he said. “That’s an order.” And Charlie promised he would.
We had a brew up with our prisoner in the dugout before they came for him. He smoked a cigarette Pete had given him. He’d stopped shaking now, but his eyes still held their fear. We had nothing to say to one another until the moment he got up to leave. “Danke,” he said “Danke sehr.”
“Funny that,” Nipper said when he’d gone. “Seeing him standing there with not a stitch on. Take off our uniforms and you can hardly tell the difference, can you? Not a bad bloke, for a Fritz, that is.”
That night I didn’t think, as I should have done, of Little Les lying out there in the German dugout, with a hole in his head. I thought of the Hun prisoner we’d brought back. I didn’t even know his name, yet, after that night cowering in the shell hole with him, I felt somehow I knew him better than I’d ever known Little Les.
It is Dresden in 1945 and Karli and Elizabeth’s mother works at the zoo. When the bombs begin to fall, they cannot bear to leave behind beloved elephant, Marlene …
took Karli by the hand and we both followed Mutti, running through the snow after Marlene. But the snow was deep and we soon tired, and were reduced to a walk. Ahead of us the chase went on. However hard the dog tried to bound away over the snow and escape, Marlene kept after him. All the while her trumpeting was echoing through the park, and louder now in my ears than seemed possible – until I began to realise that it was not Marlene’s trumpeting I was hearing at all, but the sound of the air-raid sirens wailing over the city. I stopped to listen, to be quite sure my ears were not playing tricks on me.
Karli gripped my arm. “An air raid!” he cried. “An air raid!” All I knew then was that we had to get to the shelter fast, as we had been taught. Ahead of us, Mutti too had stopped in her tracks. She was yelling out to Marlene to come back. Again and again she called, but Marlene just kept going. She was almost out of sight now in amongst the trees, as Mutti came stumbling back towards us.
“There is nothing more we can do for now, children,” she said. “We shall find her later. We must get home, to the shelter. Come quickly!” She grabbed Karli’s hand.
“No!” Karli cried, pulling away from her and turning to run. “No! We can’t! We can’t leave her. We have to catch her! I’m going after her. You go home if you like. I’m not coming.”
“Karli! Karli, don’t be silly! You come back here this minute, do you hear me?” Mutti was shouting after him, shrieking almost; but I could see it was pointless, that Karli had made up his mind. I started running after him then, so did Mutti. But he was already way ahead of us, and Marlene was by now no more than a shadowy shape moving
through the trees, and then I lost sight of her altogether. We were catching Karli up fast, when, and not for the first time, he staggered, and fell to his knees, exhausted. Mutti and I were trying to help him up, doing all we could to persuade him that we had to get back to the shelter. He was still protesting, still struggling against us, fighting us, when we heard the sound we had been dreading for so long.
The bombers.
The bombers were coming. It sounded like a distant humming at first, then it became a droning, like a swarm of bees, a swarm that was coming closer, ever closer. We looked up. We could still see no planes. We could not tell from which direction they were coming because they seemed to be all around us, but invisible. Then, in no time at all, the sky above us was filled with a thunderous throbbing roar, so loud that I thought my ears might burst. Karli had his hands over his ears and was screaming. And then the bombs began to fall, behind us, on the city, on the far side of the park, on where we had come from, our street, our house. The whole world shuddered and shook with every blast. To me it felt like the end of the world had come.
Now we had no choice. We all of us knew at that moment that there could be no going back. Mutti picked Karli up in her arms. He clung on and buried his head in her shoulder, crying out for Marlene. And we ran, we ran and we ran. We did not know tiredness any more. Fear alone kept our legs running. I looked up once more, and saw the planes flying across the moon. There were hundreds of them up there. By now the bombs were falling all over Dresden. We heard the whine of them falling, the crump and crunch of them, saw the flash of explosions, saw fires raging everywhere.
There was no more argument, not about Marlene, who had disappeared into the night by now, and not about returning home to the shelter. Marlene we could do nothing more about, and it was obvious that if there was any way of escaping the bombs, it would be in the open country ahead of us beyond the suburbs, not in a shelter back in the burning city.