An End of Poppies
what seemed like endless narrow stairways to the summit. Within the Wall men are constantly going to and fro and despite the ancient hand painted signs and stencils that say 'Keep Left', one always finds oneself bumping into some chap or other, especially on the stairways. Archie Groves couldn't help but bump his clumsy fat body into everyone he passed; he took their swearing annoyance with mumbled quiet apologies. When he turned back to me I could see the fear in his puffy red-faced embarrassment. At least that's how I remember it now.
Many parts of the Wall and its internal structure are not places for the weak hearted or claustrophobic, though up there is not as cramped and oppressive as the tunnels we now occupy, so far down below. The countless walls within the Wall have a certain overbearing sterile brutality. Its maze-like quality could fairly turn you into a madman if you let it. For some it becomes a prison of war.
At a viewing platform near the top a lucky few of us got to train binoculars across the ripped earthy scar that is no-man's land between the walls.
Like the Walls themselves, the width of this unholy place between them varies and at some places it is almost as if you can almost see the Hun faces with your naked eyes, in others the distance seems vast although it is probably only between CENSORED and CENSORED CENSORED.
In the years since that first day I have looked out over this lunar landscape from similar vantage points many, many times in several places. I have seen the ground assaults and infantry attacks and watched the crawler tanks engage in battle; puffs of bright white shell bursts exploding above them. Battle looks so different from above than from below when one is engaged in it. Less personal; like watching rival ant colonies scrap it out in a bell-jar.
Billy Treacher stood next to me that first day. Pals together. The air was clear, no smoke, and the blue of the sky seemed like a picture on a cinema screen as seen through the rectangular concrete slit of the viewing platform. The grey stain of their Wall seemed incongruous at the base of our view. As if the film was stuck in the gate of the projector and a big grey smudge was burning across the bottom of the picture. The German construction is higher than ours, despite what the Daily Mail says, and has a frightening quality to it. An ominous presence continually there in your consciousness even when you can't see it.
Of course the Hun got to the high ground first in 1914, so in most places their wall is uphill from us. But I also think theirs is a higher wall, even if you take this into account. Maybe it’s just a trick of perspective from below.
Sometimes they paint big skulls on its surface in black paint and derogatory slogans, written in poor English, about us 'bastard Tommies'. Excuse my language. Of course the foolish Huns who hang on ropes to paint such signs often pay for their bravado with their lives; easy targets for our snipers. And the signs they paint are usually obliterated pretty quickly by our shell batteries. That is if they can find their range properly. We are banned from painting such crude propaganda on our Wall; the officers say it is because we are more 'civilised' than the animalistic Hun. Although perhaps they think it is a waste of manpower for soldiers to be killed in such silly endeavours.
Billy seemed to be so thrilled as he stared out at their Wall through binoculars, I could see the excitement in his eyes as he smiled and passed them to me for a look. It was as if he couldn't wait to get to the fighting. To the killing. I know I wasn't surprised by this at the time. I just smiled back. He was my friend after all. My best pal. I suppose I too felt the adventure of it, like him. But again I could see the dismissive disdain in the eyes of those long suffering soldiers who were manning that slit in the Wall. A look of experience that could see through our naive foolishness as easily as the sharpest cut-throat razor slicing whiskers.
One of our snipers just sat there with his back to the concrete smoking a roll-up and sniffing. Cradling his polished Lee-Enfield in the crook of one arm like a baby. I could see that he didn't even want to look at us, as if experience had taught him not to get involved if he didn't have to. His only emotional attachment the high calibre rifle that usually kept him hidden away in the Wall. Away from the trenches and the tunnels.
Experience is the key to survival here and so many who are barely more than children arrive here and fail to listen to the advice of experience.
Finally they took us to the very summit. I remember being excited to be so very high up. A warm summer day; though windy for July. Mind you it is always windy at the summit of the Wall. There was little gunfire that day, a few sporadic pops in the distance, and we walked along a path cut like a winding trench, that rose and fell through the wide expanse of rubble that is the roof of the Wall. Our newly appointed Sergeant-Major; Rawlins was his name, was bellowing about how whatever we did, or wherever we went, that 'cover' was all. Cover is the thin line between life and eternity. Rawlins was the voice of experience that we should have been listening to. Only Billy wasn't listening, he never listened, and, that first day, neither was Archie Groves.
Now I can't help but think about cover, even when I am here so deep underground. It is ingrained in me. Even on leave back in blighty I find myself looking for cover. All the time. You unconsciously keep your head down and look to all angles wherever you are. On our side of the Wall the khaki lines of soldiers walk with a stoop, rows of helmeted heads bent downwards like flopping mushrooms, as if trying to duck below any stray piece of speeding shrapnel. You can always tell the newly enlisted by the angle of their gait. Heads up, gaze mystified by the enormity of the Wall, helmets wonky. And when you look into their eyes, they lack a certain weary wariness, as if they are always unaware of the likely direction of fire.
We tried to keep our heads low that first day, as we walked through the broken concrete blocks. Reinforcing steel poked skywards all round; rusting and bent in odd angles. Soldiers in the line ahead of me clunking the tin of their helmets against these odd wires. I had to bend low being so tall. Archie ahead of me, Billy behind. We reached a section that had been recently hit, with no path cleared through the rubble. The Captain went first; fearlessly stepping into the open space. He stood straight and tall above us on an artificial boulder of smashed concrete, as if he were impregnable; proud against the sky.
"I am a target," he said, his voice clear and steady in the wind, "make no mistake men, the Germans can clearly see me as I stand here. As easily as I can see you now. Do not stay still for long and make damn sure they can't see you!" I still shudder at his bravado. Captain Johns. I have no idea what became of him. Or Sergeant-Major Rawlins for that matter.
The Captain jumped down and positively skipped onwards past the gap and back to cover of the jumbled concrete trench of a path beyond. Next was Rawlins; he hunkered down low, quickly scampering and traversing the space. The dancing lightness of his heavy-booted feet came from the experience of combat. The next few recruits betrayed their rawness with clumping foot falls on the uneven rocky ground, holding their helmets against the strong summer wind, rifles dangling clumsily against their back packs. Rawlins bawled at each boy to get a move on.
Next came Archie Groves. He bent awkwardly to his knees and shuffled his fat frame out into the gap, puffing with fear. I could see the greasy sweat dribbling down his thick neck beneath his helmet. Rawlins shouted at him to get a shift on, to stand and run, and he tried to move quicker, standing with his knees bent. He wobbled like one of those self-righting toys. Turning his head quickly his helmet caught on one of the broken steel wires sticking up. Somehow the wire had slipped beneath his leather chin-strap, trapping him; he pulled his head like a horse pulling at the reins. The leather bit into his neck and was choking him. In panic he fiddled desperately with the clasp and pulled it free.
The instant his helmet swung free his head was gone. Blown away. I apologise for being so blunt dear Esme, but what I mean is that a sniper's bullet took him. His helmet left dangling by its strap like a metal leaf on a rusting steel branch; wobbling in the wind. The only sound was it clanking against the concrete and wire. I had thought you would hear the
crack of gunfire, but I never heard that shot. They say you never hear the shot that takes you, and I was near enough behind poor Archie that his thick blood splashed my trousers and boots. His round body flopped into the concrete dust like a sack of potatoes.
The truth is that the sniper fired from the top, or near the top, of their wall, it's almost impossible to see the summit from the trenches below in no-man's land. A lucky shot in such high wind from that distance. A heavy high calibre weapon with a telescopic sight on a tripod most likely. A bullet big enough to take someone's head. Gone. It sounds so awful when I re-read what I have written.
I must at this point apologise again my dearest Esme if my graphic description shocks or upsets you. I do not fully mean this to be the case. I do not mean to be so blunt but I know of no other way to tell it. I suppose I simply wish you to know the reality of this war, and my experience here. I wish you to know me for who I am. For you, my dear, are my new lifeline. Foolish to think perhaps. I dream of you and that maybe one day we could be together and you could soothe my wounds. The words of your letter were like soft fingers on my creased