They both turned to stare in the direction of the captain.
“What the ’ell’s he waitin’ for?” said Charlie.
“To see if we get ourselves killed would be my guess,” said Tommy as the moon came back out.
They both waited but said nothing until the circular glow had disappeared behind another cloud, when finally the captain came scurrying towards them.
He stopped by their side, leaned against a tree and rested until he had got his breath back.
“Right,” he eventually whispered, “we’ll advance slowly down through the forest, stopping every few yards to listen for the enemy, while at the same time using the trees for cover. Remember, never move as much as a muscle if the moon is out, and never speak unless it’s to answer a question put by me.”
The three of them began to creep slowly down the hill, moving from tree to tree, but no more than a few yards at a time. Charlie had no idea he could be so alert to the slightest unfamiliar sound. It took the three of them over an hour to reach the bottom of the slope, where they came to a halt. All they could see in front of them was a vast mass of barren open ground.
“No man’s land,” whispered Trentham. “That means we’ll have to spend the rest of our time flat on our bellies.” He immediately sank down into the mud. “I’ll lead,” he said. “Trumper, you’ll follow, and Prescott will bring up the rear.”
“Well, at least that proves ’e knows where ’e’s goin’,” whispered Tommy. “Because ’e must ’ave worked out exactly where the bullets will be comin’ from, and who they’re likely to ’it first.”
Slowly, inch by inch, the three men advanced the half mile across no man’s land, towards the Allied front line, pressing their faces back down into the mud whenever the moon reappeared from behind its unreliable screen.
Although Charlie could always see Trentham in front of him, Tommy was so silent in his wake that from time to time he had to look back just to be certain his friend was still there. A grin of flashing white teeth was all he got for his trouble.
During the first hour the three of them covered a mere hundred yards. Charlie could have wished for a more cloudy night. Stray bullets flying across their heads from both trenches ensured that they kept themselves low to the ground. Charlie found he was continually spitting out mud and once even came face to face with a German who couldn’t blink.
Another inch, another foot, another yard—on they crawled through the wet, cold mud across a terrain that still belonged to no man. Suddenly Charlie heard a loud squeal from behind him. He turned angrily to remonstrate with Tommy, only to see a rat the size of a rabbit lying between his legs. Tommy had thrust a bayonet right through its belly.
“I think it fancied you, Corp. Couldn’t have been for the sex if Rose is to be believed, so it must have wanted you for dinner.”
Charlie covered his mouth with his hands for fear the Germans might hear him laughing.
The moon slid out from behind a cloud and again lit up the open land. Once more the three men buried themselves in the mud and waited until another passing cloud allowed them to advance a few more yards. It was two more hours before they reached the barbed-wire perimeter that had been erected to stop the Germans breaking through.
Once they had reached the spiky barrier Trentham changed direction and began to crawl along the German side of the fence searching for a breach in the wire between them and safety. Another eighty yards had to be traversed—to Charlie it felt more like a mile—before the captain eventually found a tiny gap which he was able to crawl through. They were now only fifty yards from the safety of their own lines.
Charlie was surprised to find the captain hanging back, even allowing him to crawl past.
“Damn,” said Charlie under his breath, as the moon made another entrance onto the center of the stage and left them lying motionless only a street’s length away from safety. Once the light had been turned out again, slowly, again inch by inch, Charlie continued his crablike advance, now more fearful of a stray bullet from his own side than from the enemy’s. At last he could hear voices, English voices. He never thought the day would come when he would welcome the sight of those trenches.
“We’ve made it,” shouted Tommy, in a voice that might even have been heard by the Germans. Once again Charlie buried his face in the mud.
“Who goes there?” came back the report. Charlie could hear rifles being cocked up and down the trenches as sleepy men quickly came to life.
“Captain Trentham, Corporal Trumper and Private Prescott of the Royal Fusiliers,” called out Charlie firmly.
“Password?” demanded the voice.
“Oh, God, what’s the pass—?”
“Little Red Riding Hood,” shouted Trentham from behind them.
“Advance and be recognized.”
“Prescott first,” said Trentham, and Tommy pushed himself up onto his knees and began to crawl slowly towards his own trenches. Charlie heard the sound of a bullet that came from behind him and a moment later watched in horror as Tommy collapsed on his stomach and lay motionless in the mud.
Charlie looked quickly back through the half-light towards Trentham who said, “Bloody Huns. Keep down or the same thing might happen to you.”
Charlie ignored the order and crawled quickly forward until he came to the prostrate body of his friend. Once he had reached his side he placed an arm around Tommy’s shoulder. “There’s only about twenty yards to go,” he told him. “Man wounded,” said Charlie in a loud whisper as he looked up towards the trenches.
“Prescott, don’t move while the moon’s out,” ordered Trentham from behind them.
“How you feelin’, mate?” asked Charlie as he tried to fathom the expression on his friend’s face.
“Felt better, to be ’onest,” said Tommy.
“Quiet, you two,” said Trentham.
“By the way, that was no German bullet,” choked Tommy as a trickle of blood began to run out of his mouth. “So just make sure you get the bastard if I’m not given the chance to do the job myself.”
“You’ll be all right,” said Charlie. “Nothin’ and nobody could kill Tommy Prescott.”
As a large black cloud covered the moon, a group of men including two Red Cross orderlies who were carrying a stretcher jumped over the top and ran towards them. They dropped the stretcher by Tommy’s side and dragged him onto the canvas before jogging back towards the trench. Another volley of bullets came flying across from the German lines.
Once they had reached the safety of the dugout, the orderlies dumped the stretcher unceremoniously on the ground. Charlie shouted at them, “Get ’im to the ’ospital tent—quickly for God’s sake, quickly.”
“Not much point, Corp,” said the medical orderly. “’E’s dead.”
CHAPTER
5
“HQ is still waiting for your report, Trumper.”
“I know, Sarge, I know.”
“Any problems, lad?” asked the color sergeant, which Charlie recognized as a coded message for “Can you write?”
“No problems, Sarge.”
For the next hour he wrote out his thoughts slowly, then rewrote the simple account of what had taken place on 18 July 1918 during the second battle of the Marne.
Charlie read and reread his banal offering, aware that although he extolled Tommy’s courage during the battle he made no mention of Trentham fleeing from the enemy. The plain truth was that he hadn’t witnessed what was going on behind him. He might well have formed his own opinion but he knew that would not bear cross-examination, at some later date. And as for Tommy’s death, what proof had he that one stray bullet among so many had come from the pistol of Captain Trentham? Even if Tommy had been right on both counts and Charlie voiced those opinions, it would only be his word against that of an officer and a gentleman.
The only thing he could do was make sure that Trentham received no praise from his pen for what had taken place on the battlefield that day. Feeling like a traitor, Charli
e scribbled his signature on the bottom of the second page before handing in his report to the orderly officer.
Later that afternoon the duty sergeant allowed him an hour off to dig the grave in which they would bury Private Prescott. As he knelt by its head he cursed the men on either side who could have been responsible for such a war.
Charlie listened to the chaplain intone the words, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” before the last post was played yet again. Then the burial party took a pace to the right and began digging the grave of another known soldier. A hundred thousand men sacrificed their lives on the Marne. Charlie could no longer accept that any victory was worth such a price.
He sat cross-legged at the foot of the grave, unaware of the passing of time as he hewed out a cross with his bayonet. Finally he stood and placed it at the head of the mound. On the center of the cross he had carved the words, “Private Tommy Prescott.”
A neutral moon returned that night to shine on a thousand freshly dug graves, and Charlie swore to whatever God cared to listen that he would not forget his father or Tommy or, for that matter, Captain Trentham.
He fell asleep among his comrades. Reveille stirred him at first light, and after one last look at Tommy’s grave he returned to his platoon, to be informed that the Colonel of the Regiment would be addressing the troops at zero nine hundred hours.
An hour later he was standing to attention in a depleted square of those who had survived the battle. Colonel Hamilton told his men that the Prime Minister had described the second battle of the Marne as the greatest victory in the history of the war. Charlie found himself unable to raise a voice to join his cheering comrades.
“It was a proud and honorable day to be a Royal Fusilier,” continued the colonel, his monocle still firmly in place. The regiment had won a VC, six MCs and nine MMs in the battle. Charlie felt indifferent as each of the decorated men was announced and his citation read out until he heard the name of Lieutenant Arthur Harvey who, the colonel told them, had led a charge of Number 11 Platoon all the way up to the German trenches, thus allowing those behind him to carry on and break through the enemy’s defenses. For this he was posthumously awarded the Military Cross.
A moment later Charlie heard the colonel utter the name of Captain Guy Trentham. This gallant officer, the colonel assured the regiment, careless of his own safety, continued the attack after Lieutenant Harvey had fallen, killing several German soldiers before reaching their dugouts, where he wiped out a complete enemy unit single-handed. Having crossed the enemy’s lines, he proceeded to chase two Germans into a nearby forest. He succeeded in killing both enemy soldiers before rescuing two Fusiliers from German hands. He then led them back to the safety of the Allied trenches. For this supreme act of courage Captain Trentham was also awarded the Military Cross.
Trentham stepped forward and the troops cheered as the colonel removed a silver cross from a leather case before pinning the medal on his chest.
One sergeant major, three sergeants, two corporals and four privates then had their citations read out, each one named and his acts of heroism recalled in turn. But only one of them stepped forward to receive his medal.
“Among those unable to be with us today,” continued the colonel, “is a young man who followed Lieutenant Harvey into the enemy trenches and then killed four, perhaps five German soldiers before later stalking and shooting another, finally killing a German officer before being tragically killed himself by a stray bullet when only yards from the safety of his own trenches.” Once again the assembled gathering cheered.
Moments later the parade was dismissed and while others returned to their tents, Charlie walked slowly back behind the lines until he reached the mass burial ground.
He knelt down by a familiar mound and after a moment’s hesitation yanked out the cross that he had placed at the head of the grave.
Charlie unclipped a knife that hung from his belt and beside the name “Tommy Prescott” he carved the letters “MM.”
A fortnight later one thousand men, with a thousand legs, a thousand arms and a thousand eyes between them, were ordered home. Sergeant Charles Trumper of the Royal Fusiliers was detailed to accompany them, perhaps because no man had been known to survive three charges on the enemy’s lines.
Their cheerfulness and delight at still being alive only made Charlie feel more guilty. After all, he had only lost one toe. On the journey back by land, sea and land, he helped the men dress, wash, eat and be led without complaint or remonstration.
At Dover they were greeted on the quayside by cheering crowds welcoming their heroes home. Trains had been laid on to dispatch them to all parts of the country, so that for the rest of their lives they would be able to recall a few moments of honor, even glory. But not for Charlie. His papers only instructed him to travel on to Edinburgh where he was to help train the next group of recruits who would take their places on the Western Front.
On 11 November 1918, at eleven hundred hours, hostilities ceased and a grateful nation stood in silence for three minutes when on a railway carriage in the forest of Compiègne, the Armistice was signed. When Charlie heard the news of victory he was training some raw recruits on a rifle range in Edinburgh. Some of them were unable to hide their disappointment at being cheated out of the chance to face the enemy.
The war was over and the Empire had won—or that is how the politicians presented the result of the match between Britain and Germany.
“More than nine million men have died for their country, and some even before they had finished growing,” Charlie wrote in a letter to his sister Sal. “And what has either side to show for such carnage?”
Sal wrote back to let him know how thankful she was he was still alive and went on to say that she had become engaged to a pilot from Canada. “We plan to marry in the next few weeks and go to live with his parents in Toronto. Next time you get a letter from me it will be from the other side of the world.
“Grace is still in France but expects to return to the London Hospital some time in the new year. She’s been made a ward sister. I expect you know her Welsh corporal caught pneumonia. He died a few days after peace had been declared.
“Kitty disappeared off the face of the earth and then without warning turned up in Whitechapel with a man in a motorcar; neither of them seemed to be hers but she looked very pleased with life.”
Charlie couldn’t understand his sister’s P.S.: “Where will you live when you get back to the East End?”
Sergeant Charles Trumper was discharged from active service on 20 February 1919, one of the early ones: the missing toe had at last counted for something. He folded up his uniform, placed his helmet on top, boots by the side, marched across the parade ground and handed them in to the quartermaster.
“I hardly recognized you, Sarge, in that old suit and cap. Don’t fit any longer, do they? You must have grown during your time with the Fussies.”
Charlie looked down and checked the length of his trousers: they now hung a good inch above the laces of his boots.
“Must have grown durin’ my time with the Fussies,” he repeated, pondering the words.
“Bet your family will be glad to see you when you get back to civvy street.”
“Whatever’s left of them,” said Charlie as he turned to go. His final task was to report to the paymaster’s office and receive his last pay packet and travel voucher before relinquishing the King’s shilling.
“Trumper, the duty officer would like a word with you,” said the sergeant major, after Charlie had completed what he had assumed was his last duty.
Lieutenant Makepeace and Lieutenant Harvey would always be his duty officers, thought Charlie as he made his way back across the parade ground in the direction of the company offices. Some fresh-faced youth, who had not been properly introduced to the enemy, now had the nerve to try and take their place.
Charlie was about to salute the lieutenant when he remembered he was no longer in uniform, so he simply removed his cap.
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
“Yes, Trumper, a personal matter.” The young officer touched a large box that lay on his desk. Charlie couldn’t quite see what was inside.
“It appears, Trumper, that your friend Private Prescott made a will in which he left everything to you.”
Charlie was unable to hide his surprise as the lieutenant pushed the box across the table.
“Would you be kind enough to check through its contents and then sign for them?”
Another buff form was placed in front of him. Above the typed name of Private Thomas Prescott was a paragraph written in a bold large hand. An “X” was scrawled below it, witnessed by Sergeant Major Philpott.
Charlie began to remove the objects from the box one by one. Tommy’s mouth organ, rusty and falling apart, seven pounds eleven shillings and sixpence in back pay, followed by a German officer’s helmet. Next Charlie took out a small leather box and opened the lid to discover Tommy’s Military Medal and the simple words “For bravery in the field” printed across the back. He removed the medal and held it in the palm of his hand.
“Must have been a jolly brave chap, Prescott,” said the lieutenant. “Salt of the earth and all that.”
“And all that,” agreed Charlie.
“A religious man as well?”
“No, can’t pretend ’e was,” said Charlie, allowing himself a smile. “Why do you ask?”
“The picture,” said the lieutenant, pointing back into the box. Charlie leaned forward and stared down in disbelief at a painting of the Virgin Mary and Child. It was about eight inches square and framed in black teak. He took the portrait out and held it in his hands.
He gazed at the deep reds, purples and blues that dominated the central figure in the painting, feeling certain he’d seen the image somewhere before. It was several moments before he replaced the little oil in the box along with Tommy’s other possessions.