CHAPTER ELEVEN
Somme, France, 1916.
1st July 1916.
This was hell. I have never had much faith in God or heaven for that matter, but now I think there has to be something of the sort. This cannot be what life is all about. Peeking around corners, waiting for one of your kind to attack and keeping on your guard just so you can kill them first. If God is true, I really do not think he should have sent Jesus to the world 2000 years ago, really he should send him to us now. We need all the help we can get and this is proof that we are not able to cope with the responsibilities of being the most dominant species on this planet. We need to get our act together and fast. How on earth are we meant to protect and control the world around us when we cannot even control ourselves? It’s maddening. We are apparently, though at times like this I often question our judgment, the most intelligent beings on this planet. What a marvelous thought it would be if we actually acted like it.
I was leading the way for Rob, Paul and Roger who would then follow behind and trust my luck, I had to be the one to go in first. I had to discover if there was a German lurking around and inform the others. If I did not come back, they did not follow until they had other members of the platoon as reinforcements to back them up. Fantastic. Nothing quite meets the feeling of being the experiment, in what feels like a new formula being tested out by mad scientists and seeing who comes out on top.
Not expecting it, something with a force of angry energy threw me to the ground and I suppose the reinforcements are nearing. Well it’s either that or the Germans. Either way I’m still pretty stuck. I wiped the dust and dirt away from my face so I could use all of my senses and just a few feet away from me was a slightly perplexed German, who like me was clearly knocked down from the impact.
As soon as our eyes met both of our battle instincts kicked in. In perfect timing we both reached for our weapons, only to find they had been knocked to the floor, out of our hands in the blow. Now here was a dilemma, a soldier without his toy. One eye scanned the dust around me for the weapon, while the other kept a sturdy glare on the enemy, making sure he did not move an inch. The weapons had landed in exactly the same position, lying in the dirt next to each other, about half a meter away. I looked up to study his face when a commotion of war broke up in the trench behind us, exactly where I had left Rob, Paul and Roger. Still without my gun I looked at the enemy’s face and he was more like a boy than a man. He was young. Younger than me, maybe the same age as Rob, but to be honest he looked about fifteen. Looking at the German boy’s eyes, I could see they were a bright blue colour but clouded and filled with fear. There was something about the colour of his eyes that got to me and I had no idea why, until it struck me. They were Matthew’s eyes, well the same colour anyway. I don’t know why, but when I made that connection, I knew I could not kill him.
As I was deciding what to do, I saw the German reach for his weapon, which unfortunately for him was lying nearer to me than him. My soldier instincts kicked in again and I knocked him back down to the ground, with my hands pinning him down. The boy was now completely shaking in fear. Not surprising of course when he was probably contemplating on how he would die. Would this Englishman kill me by strangling me or by beating me to death? Either way he started putting up a fight and I could hear Roger shouting my name and I knew if I wanted to save the boy, I had to act now. Roger would not want to save him. He would kill him instantly.
“Ich werde dich nicht tõten, wenn Sie nicht mich töten handelsaktivität” I said urgently.
Obviously he was shocked and if we were not in war I would have found his expression funny. Well I could hardly blame him for feeling surprised, when the one person who is your enemy and is meant to kill you says ‘I won’t kill you if you won’t kill me deal’. You are bound to be surprised. Of course he was shocked by the gesture but I think he was more surprised that an Englishman spoke the enemy’s tongue. Weighing up his chances of survival he agreed to the deal.
“Handelsaktivität” he replied.
I pulled him up and gave him his weapon back and of course this probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but I cannot explain it I just knew I could trust him. Roger’s voice and footsteps were coming ever closer and I knew he would instantly want to go and kill the boy. That is what soldiers are meant to do after all. When his feet stopped crushing the gravel underneath him, I turned around to face him and began to bargain for the boy’s life. Well he looked as if he had seen a ghost. Instantly Roger’s soldier’s instincts went into full mode and he just about had his bayonet in the boy’s stomach until I stood in front of the boy and knocked the weapon out of Roger’s hands. Roger was not impressed.
“Thomas! What the hell are you doing?!” Roger shouted.
“I can’t kill him” I shouted back.
“Clearly not, that’s why I tried to before you knocked the weapon out of my hands. Now get out of the way!” Roger ordered as he bent down to pick up his weapon.
I knocked him to the ground in protest and I could see the anger building up in his face.
“You can’t kill him Roger!” I shouted.
“Why not? He’s just like any other German!” Roger replied back in fury.
“Look at his eyes! Their Matthew’s eyes!” I exclaimed.
Roger looked and I knew now he would not kill the boy. I knew Roger would not kill him for several reasons. The first being; even though Roger and Matthew were anything but friends, we had grown up in our childhood together, even as enemies. Secondly; even something as weak as that takes hold on your emotion’s in war. If you knew someone before the war you perhaps unknowingly, look out for them. I know if I had the chance to save Albert Bradford from death, I would have done – just as if he was my own brother. For the people you knew in childhood always stick with you and in a war such as gruesome and horrific as this, you protect the people you know. So the third reason as to why Roger would not kill the German boy, simply because he had Matthew’s eyes, was the fact that we had failed to protect him. In war our past annoyances and petty hatred of one another fade slightly, they still remain because the hurt of the past is still there but with the fighting you only have one goal in mind – to stay alive, and if you can, to keep the lives of those around you.
As if answering the telepathic silence, the German boy held out his hand and spoke. Surprisingly in English.
“My names Otto” Otto replied with a strong German accent, holding out his hand.
“Thomas” I said, replying the gesture.
“Roger” Roger said following suit.
An unlikely friendship formed, in an extremely unlikely place and situation. Roger and I came to the decision quickly that there was no way Otto would survive the others in the attack if he stayed with us, so we told him to run and he did not need telling twice.
“Thank you” Otto replied.
Otto ran and Roger and I went back to help the others, before they became concerned and came looking. We wanted to give Otto a fighting chance to escape the trench. The fighting continued for several hours and the German resistance was fierce. Finally in the early hours of the morning when reinforcements came we were able to take the trench. Many of the Germans were killed, along with the British and I think some of them have been taken prisoner; well we had not been given any orders not to take prisoners.
We began to secure the trench and we continued to walk up and down, making sure it was completely under British occupation. We had just turned the next corner in the trench when we stumbled across another pile of bodies. Some were in our uniform, while some were in the enemies.
“Check to see if anyone’s alive” Sergeant B. Miller ordered.
Following his orders, we did the gruesome task of turning the bodies over to see if they were alive. This was gruesome because most of the time, parts off their faces would have been blown off, limbs would be missing or blood would be covering them completely from head to toe. I had turned over about three men, two British, one German and none o
f them were alive. I turned over the fourth man and the man’s face was completely destroyed. It was as if the first layer of his skin had been ripped off. He was German and as I moved closer to check his pulse [even though I knew there was no chance in hell he would be alive] my feet moved backwards in shock, almost tripping over another dead man. It was Otto.
Before I knew what my emotions were doing, I felt a cold wet tear fall down my face. When I acknowledged its presence I quickly wiped it away. It was completely unsuitable for a soldier to cry during war, especially at the death of the enemy. I heard footsteps behind me and I looked around to see Roger. I looked back at Otto’s severely damaged face and the only thing that remained untouched was his bright blue eyes. Matthew’s eyes. Eyes which were now unmoving, staring right at me, staring into nothing. I knew Roger had recognised who he was and the look he gave me, told me all the unspoken words of emotion that I knew he was feeling. We had both wanted Otto to survive; it would have been so easy for us to kill him when we had the chance, but we let him live. Only for him to be killed by another. Roger gave me a friendly tap on the back and walked away.
I was given orders to get some rest, it would only be a few hours’ sleep at best but I needed it. This is of course under the impression that sleeping would be an easy task, when at war it is quite the opposite. The cries from dying men could still be heard just beyond the trench and there was nothing we could do. Their cries were confusing. It was not certain whether they were crying to go back home or if they were welcoming death. I think it was the latter. I have always believed that the cry of a fox sounds like a person getting killed, ever since I was a child. Well there must be about a million foxes out here tonight.
I probably managed three hours of sleep and I was grateful. Battle recommenced and we headed back out onto no man’s land for our next objective. The Germans were not going to let us advance any more than we already had, that was for sure and certain. We were probably only about 100 yards away from the trench we had just left, when the attack began again and we were slaughtered. Their machine guns were taking down the platoon ahead of us and we could hear them being destroyed. We were being attacked by shells and any form of bullets that decided to come our way. I jumped over the trench this morning with Roger, Paul, Rob, Tim and Johnnie by my side. We had been fighting for an hour now and most of us had been separated in the chaos. Roger was about five feet behind me, but I could not see the others. I kept praying they were safe and I realised that this was the first time I had been separated from them in battle. It was not a comforting thought.
We were meant to advance at a slow and steady pace, almost as if we were taking a morning walk in the country. By now though most of us were running, running for our lives. It was evident things were not going well for us. Headquarters had not predicted this. We had been fighting for about seven hours now and it was exhausting. It must be late afternoon and one thing I was grateful for was that this battle was occurring in the summer months and we had more light on our side. I was running like I had never run before. I was almost flying, dodging bullets along the way. One minute I was running with the land stretching out in front of me, continuing into the depths of hell, but then there was a huge force of angry energy which forced my legs off the earth and into the air, at an exhilarating speed. Consequently I hit the dirt with a thud, which is when the blackness appeared.
….
My eyelids moved, but did not open. I could see the inside of the skin and slowly my eyelids opened and I could see, but the darkness did not disappear. It was night time. My head was pounding and I was trying to remember the sequence of events that had happened, for me to be in this position. Then I remembered. I remembered that I had been running across no man’s land, dodging bullets along the way and then I was hit. The land exploded in front of me and the impact threw me into the air and whatever goes up, gravity will pull it down. I assumed that when I landed here I hit my head and went into a concussion, which would explain the pain in my head. The only thing that could have knocked me out like that was a shell. It all made sense now. I was lucky to be alive, yet again.
Now that I knew what had happened to me I tried to remember the information regarding my location and what plan of action I should take first. First and foremost I needed to check if I was injured and with an impact like that, it would be most likely. The trouble was it was so dark I could barely see my legs, let alone find out where I was. I looked up at the sky and I could see a brief outline of the moon, covered by the clouds. I would have to wait until the moonlight reappeared to do anything. Suddenly I was struck by the overwhelming need for water. Using my memory I recalled where I had placed my water container and with shaking hands I reached behind me, felt the side pocket of my bag and pulled out my water bottle. I unscrewed the lid and tilted it upwards so the water would enter my mouth. One drop fell onto my tongue, but no more water arrived. It was empty. Brilliant.
The moon had just come out from his hiding place beneath the clouds and still extremely thirsty I looked around me, so I could see where I was. I was in a ditch. I could see about five or six men, perhaps even seven men around me and there was no sound from any of them so I assumed they were dead. Using the moonlight, I reached over to the bag of the dead man next to me and I took his water. Part of me felt guilty, stealing something from a dead man but then again he no longer had any need for it.
I took the bottle and to my relief it was filled with water and I gulped it down. Lost in thought of destruction and misery, a sharp pain came from my left foot. The pain reminded me of the beatings my father gave me as a child, but that pain was nothing compared to this. It felt like my foot had been hit a thousand times over with an iron hammer and then twisted a whole 360 degrees. Waiting for the moon once again, I used the light to take off my boot, only to see that my sock was completely stained in blood. My sock was now a dark blood red. I knew I had to stop the bleeding before I moved anywhere and I reached into my bag, pulling out the field dressing. I used the tissue to try and stop the bleeding and I then put a bandage around it. The bleeding still continued, but it had eased and I knew it would stop eventually. Luckily for me, the wound did not seem too bad, although the pain was still excruciating. I put the blood stained sock back on, placed my boot back on top and then began to consider my next move.
Then I remembered that Roger had been only five feet behind me and he too would have been caught in the impact of the shell. Despite my feelings towards Roger, even though ever since this war began, the feeling of anger and if I admit slight jealously of his wealth had lessened, I knew I needed to find him. The task would be near impossible. Trying to find one man, possibly dead, possibly alive, among a field of dead or dying men. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I was determined though, determined to find him.
I gathered all of my provisions together and put them back into my bag. Just to be sure, I looked around the ditch to see if Roger was there and he was not. I did not recognise any of the men. Knowing that Roger was behind me when the shell landed I decided to head back that way for about twenty feet and then I would turn around and head forwards. I had no idea where the exact location of the next trench and our platoon’s objective would be, but I would just head in one direction and hope for the best. What’s the worst that could happen? What I was planning to do was probably senseless and before I left the ditch I questioned if what I was planning to do in my mind was actually feasible in reality. I looked up at the sky and I saw a bird as black as night fly into the moons garden. I wonder what they see up there, when they see us. They probably see the truth. With a bird’s eye view of the world nothing can get in the way of observation. No buildings of obstruction. They will see what we truly are. Monsters.
With this thought in mind, realising that we were acting like deranged monsters it fuelled my determination to be the opposite. I would not leave a person I knew as a child even if he was my enemy to die, or if he was dead to let his body rot in a place that was
not his home. I had been a fool in my youth, but I was not anymore and I was not a monster of humanity. I would show some form of compassion for another’s life.
I took my courage and I built up my strength to climb out of the ditch. I would not walk to where I needed to go, for two reasons. One, if the Germans spotted a man walking on no man’s land at this hour they would shoot him down and secondly, the pain in my left foot was too much for me to walk on it. So I only had one option and that was to crawl through no man’s land to try and find Roger. To try and find the needle in a hay stack.
Yours,
Private Thomas Millward.