this paper.
It came as a surprise when we were told to pack our things, even though we had all known it had been coming for months. The Sergeant-Major simply bellowed the orders without much ceremony or explanation. Simply told us to pack our kit because we were leaving. Ridiculously he put us on clean-up duty. Said that we had to leave our stink pit in tip-top condition for the next lot. We tried our best but that place has always, and will always, simply be a filthy hole deep beneath the ground in the mud.
Suffice to say no one was sad to know that they would see the back of those depressing wet tunnels. Although I am sure there was, and still is, trepidation about what awaits us next; there always is with redeployment.
The very next morning we slowly climbed the stairs and ladders up through the innards of the Wall. Our packs and webbing full and heavy, tin hats strapped tightly to our chins as we marched out into a dazzlingly crisp blue day. Every soldier squinting like a Chinaman at the brightness of the sun. The pallid grey-white skin of our gaunt faces fairly shone in that moment; despite the grime on every cheek, a hazy mist of warm breath from each mouth. The topside troops stared; we all seemed to have toothy yellow grins as we marched past.
Then we stood to attention; the whole regiment together on the large makeshift square of frozen dirt they call a parade ground. The battered regimental flags of a bygone age whipping in the breeze and the shadow of the Wall looming large behind us.
The Divisional Commander stood on a small soap-box and announced that we were to be billeted further back from the Front, and that the Middlesex was and is a tremendously proud regiment to belong to, and that we had all done our duty well and should continue to do so. Then we split back into units for inspection. There was some reallocation of men and then the Sergeant-Major bawled us out for looking so scruffy and dirty. Called us a 'miserable shower' and then every man was issued with a new safety razor and a bar of carbolic soap.
So for the first time in many months I am thoroughly washed and clean shaven. It's probably the first time since I saw you my dear Esme I have been so clean. I don't suppose you would find me very impressive if you had seen me underground; all dirt and whiskers. The lice are still a problem, but, without meaning to offend, one does seem to get used to the sores and the itching. One sees men habitually scratching their armpits all about the place. It is such a common sight that it goes completely unnoticed, as if it is part of the natural behaviour of man. When you do stop and notice it, in the mornings for example, the men stretch and itch and pick lice from one another's bodies, just like a troop of monkeys in a zoo. As Darwin said we are but simple apes after all. This is all despite being issued with acrid de-lousing powder. That stuff never seems to work. Well not for long.
Anyway we have marched at least ten miles back from the Wall, supposedly far enough back to be out of range of most of their shells, through it doesn't seem anywhere near far enough to me. Hendricks says the Germans have guns mounted on railway carriages that can fire shells thirty or forty miles. Then there is always the threat of fighters that strafe the lines, not to mention the bombers and rockets.
It is an odd thing to march through the crazy lines of trenches, dugouts, anti-aircraft batteries, artillery and muster stations, especially after being underground for so long. Everything is changed and feels different from the way you remember it; as if you have stepped out from the depths of the sheltering Wall and into a different and new war. And in many ways this is true.
When you see the vast machine of war on the ground it can seem like chaos encapsulated. Thousands of men going to and fro; khaki dots of humanity threading in and out of tunnels and trenches and walkways. Trucks, staff cars, Land Rovers and crawler tanks weave in and out of the lines of humanity. Temporary railway lines and tramlines of all gauges criss-cross these lines at various points, their carriages ferrying men and materials, ordnance and livestock to all parts of the wall. One sees horses, donkeys and even cattle sticking their malnourished snouts out of slatted carts. Even these hellish malnourished beasts are put to work carrying food, sacks and ammunition until their frail bony frames can no longer bear the loads anymore. What is left of them ends up in the sloppy stews and broths we are fed of an evening.
It has the appearance and feel of walking through an impossibly large ant colony. Each man, animal and machine has a purpose despite the appearance of chaos. Everyone knows where they are going and if they don't, like we didn't as we marched through the lines, they simply follow the man or beast or vehicle in front. Somewhere ahead is someone who is simply following orders. Ants move by instinct, guided by feelers and pheromones. The soldier does the same, guided by orders; shouted instructions that punctuate the air in staccato fashion, mixing their sound with the grind of engines and the distant gunfire.
The cold air hung heavy as we marched. Heavy with the blue choke of diesel fumes and fires mixed with morning fog; making the atmosphere have a ponderous soup-like feel to it. There wasn't much snow here it seems. Not as much as in England anyway. Above us the sun, the beautiful life giving sun; shafts penetrating through the smog, occasional glints from a scuffed tin hat or passing glass windscreen.
And wire, everywhere the wire. Its razor tipped curls and spikes wobbling in high spirals to our left and right as we trudge along the battered wooden boards that traverse the mud below us. Wire teams constantly maintaining it everywhere, just in case, by some unseen calamity, the Germans should breach our Wall. Or, which is more likely, they send suicidal parachuting storm troopers to our side as they occasionally have been known to do.
I saw a group of these storm troopers once, about four years ago, not far back from the Wall at Vimy Ridge. You can never tell they are coming until a few distant shouts echo out from the Wall that they have been spotted. The gliders they jump from are impossibly silent and their black silk parachutes are virtually invisible against the dim fading dusk of the sky.
We hunkered down in wet slimy foxholes firing a few useless Enfield rounds randomly up at them. At that point I hadn't actually fired my rifle that often, not in anger anyway, and as I pulled the trigger a couple of times I could feel the heavy thump of recoil bruising hard against my shoulder.
It wasn't long before the 'Very' pistols cracked from holes and trenches all around. A myriad of ghostly bright flares rocketed from these ungainly pistols, spiralling high and illuminating the grey backdrop of sky. At last the doomed parachutists were revealed; a flock of black bat-like silhouettes drifting slowly against the harsh potassium glow of the rising flares. There must have been about a hundred or more of them. A pause to take aim and then all at once machine guns and Enfield's volley together in a cacophony of fire. Fire from the ground and fire from the Wall. Tracer bullets from machine gun nests on the ground and on the Wall weaving bright Morse code paths in every direction you look, like some crazy luminous dot to dot picture in the sky. A picture that burns intermittent trails against your retinas; trails that stubbornly remain when you blink and annoyingly impede your aim.
I fired again at those floating soldiers, all the while stupidly cursing myself for my blurry eyesight and the fact that my aim is so poor. It should have been like shooting fish in a barrel but all I could hit was the void of black sky. It was not that I wanted to kill any of them, I simply had the shameful flippant thought of annoyance at missing. Of course, plenty of others didn't miss. I don't suppose even one of those poor Bosch made it to the ground alive.
One of the black parachutes crumpled and snagged on the high jagged rolls of wire flanking our foxhole. The poor man's body slumped and dragged its weight slowly down the razors and spikes like a rag doll.
A crowd soon gathered and we shone torches at his body; limbs hanging unnaturally. The torchlight gleamed and flicked from his silver buttons; his storm trooper uniform was unusually clean and steely jet black. He was sporting a mask and goggles; skull and crossbones neatly stencilled on the side of his coal-scuttle steel helmet. I could see his britches sodden with blood, making them
seem even blacker in the half light, where it was seeping down into his shiny black calf boots.
Soon there was a dispute between a couple of men over those boots. A dispute that looked like it might end with fists until finally a Corporal intervened. He settled the dispute with the simple toss of a coin. Ridiculous really because the Hun was a small man and the boots didn't even fit the big feet of the man who won them. I think he traded them for a few tins of corned beef or maybe some cigarettes or dried biscuits; I don't recall. Coins don't always mean much as currency here at the front, but a fine pair of Hun riding boots can supplement your diet for a week or satisfy your nicotine cravings.
It doesn't take long for their dead to be stripped of all they possess. Grisly practice I know. Ghouls that we are; vultures picking over the meat and bones for trinkets that we claim as the spoils of war. Again it seems flippant. Flippant to think of mere possessions in the face of death. Such an easy flippant disrespect. But, it seems, so much of this war is flippant. We are so flippant in the face of God's creation, as if we are intent on destruction of His world. I too am flippant in my own small ways, as if