Story 15 – 200 Yards

“Me hands are shaking, Pikey.”

Richard Pike gave Sam a thin smile “You’d be a fool if you weren’t a bit scared, Stones.”

Sam tried to smile back, but his panicked eyes gave away the fact that his nerve was close to breaking.

The constant explosions, the booming of the artillery, the knowledge that they would be going over the top in minutes, Pike could see it was more than his mate could stand.

“Calm down, kid.” Said Ginger “If your hands keep shaking like that you’re more likely to kill the birds in the sky than hit the Hun in a trench.”

“Leave him alone, Ginger. Its a natural thing.” Pike said.

Jones clapped his big hands on Sam’s shoulders “Scared is one. Shaking hands ain’t so great. You just keep in front of me, boy, wouldn’t want to take one in the back by mistake.”

Pike felt anger rising “Pack it in you lot. Sam, you’ll be fine. Stick by me an I’ll get you through it.”

Sam kept looking at his hands “What if I can trust me hand though, Pikey?”

Jackson, the big former dock worker picked Sam up in a bear hug “Trust in mine, laddie. I’ll give any Hun we come across a good squeezing.”

Sam yelped as the big man tightened his grip.

“Let him go. You break him, he won’t do any good out there.” Pike growled.

“Not sure he’ll do any good out there anyway.” Said Jones, spitting on the floor.

Pike glared at him. 

Ginger caught the mood had shifted from almost friendly fun to violence in the ranks and grabbed his mates “Come on, lads. We’ve to to get in place. See you two on the other side.” He gave them a wink as the three of them hustled off.

“I don’t know if I can do this.” Sam said.

Pike gave the kid a friendly punch in the arm and told him he definitely could. It was weird to think of Sam as a kid, he was only a couple of years younger than himself.

“What if I mess up?”

“You probably won’t know much about it.” Pike replied, not thinking. He wished he’d kept his mouth shut when he saw the blood drain out of Sam’s face.

“Chin up, boys.” Sergeant Carter appeared at their shoulder “Keep a grip on your rifles, watch your mates and shoot the bastards dead.”

“Sarge, I don’t know if…”

“Listen to me, Stone.” Carter interrupted “you will go up when the whistle blows even if I have to heave you over the top myself. You are a soldier, act like one.”

Pike felt himself automatically straighten his body, a reflex from months of drills.

Carter nodded at them and made his way down the trench, Pike watched him stop at another group to give a short speech before heading on.

“Do you think he actually would throw me?” Stone asked.

Pike looked his friend up and down, nineteen years old, skinny and pale. “I think he could probably loft you up there on the wind of his yelling.”

“Cheeky bastard.”

Pike agreed that he was but was pleased to see a hint of actual humour on his friend’s face.

“Stick with me, Stones. I mean it, Sam. I’ll get you there. I promise, once we cross No Man’s Land, your hands will be far too busy killing the Hun to work about them shaking.”

“You really think so?”

Pike nodded, seeing a bit of colour come back to the boy’s face “I know so.”

“One minute!” The call came down.

Pike felt his heart start to pound in his chest This was it, after all this time, he was finally going over the top. Artillery still crashed down, filling the world with eruptions. He hoped they had done enough to take out most of the Hun in the target trench.

The air smelled wet, the sloppy mud under his feet the result of three days of rain which had finally stopped yesterday. The heavy smell of the exploded ordinance drifted over the top and down. He wasn’t sure if he preferred it to the usual smell of damp and rot which permeated the trench.

Waggling his boots to free them of the grip of the mud, Pike checked his rifle, the trusty Lee-Enfield. Today was going to be the first time he’d get to really put it to use.

He could hear Sam’s breaths speeding up and felt his own doing the same. Was this excitement or fear? For Sam it was definitely fear, he could see it. For himself, this was what he had signed up for, just after Christmas 1914, when all the early proclamations that the war would be over by then had proven false.

“Fix bayonets.”

His hands moved smoothly, slotting the lengthy blade into position with practised ease. Beside him he could hear Sam cursing under his breath as he struggled to get it into place. Normally Pike would have helped him, but the men in front of him were already lining up by the ladders. Despite his promise, at this moment Sam needed to sort himself out. 

He kept his eyes fixed on his ladder, noticing that the artillery had ceased only in a distant way.

Twelve rungs, that was all that stood between him and battle. Twelve wooden steps, solid and reliable to carry him from below the ground and up onto the field of battle.

“I can’t do this.” Sam moaned quietly.

“Of course you bloody well can.” Pike hissed back at him, “Two hundred yards, that’s how far we’ve got to go. You’ve run further than that from the rozzers.”

Pike watched Lieutenant Follow grip the ladder and place his foot on the lowest rung.

“Ten seconds, chaps. God be with you. For King and Country!” The lieutenant called out. Pike had always liked him, he’d seemed a decent sort, for a toff. That thin moustache didn’t actually make him look as distinguished as he thought, more like a kid imitating his Dad. Follow had been cursed with a youthful face that had made him less intimidating than other officers. Instead of making up for that with excessive discipline and cruelty, Follow had led with his considerable charm.

Whistles came down the trench. Pike watched Follow put his to his mouth and blow.

A roar echoed down the trench as the men vented their emotions out into the world as they began to swarm up the ladders. Follow vanished from sight and the men followed him. Before he could think, Pike found himself climbing the ladder, hearing the exhortations of Sergeant Carter behind him to get the men up.

Cresting the top, Pike saw the grey mist of morning still not fully dissipated. The men in front of him becoming faded as they advanced.

Something snapped past his ear and now he could hear the chatter of the German guns.

The ground was sodden, sticky. It pulled at him to stay in place, to remain a still target for the hungry weapons of the enemy. Each step took more effort than he expected.

“Just two hundred yards.” He told himself.

He forced himself to speed up, to catch the leading line. Lieutenant Follow was a vague shape ahead of him but he could could hear his voice, clear and strong. Encouraging the men to keep up.

Movement to his left, Pike saw that Sam had overcome his fear and was alongside him.

“Lovely day for a stroll.” Pike called out.

“Isn’t it?” Sam yelled back.

The men ahead of him started to drop. He heard screams of pain from some, others simply went silent and still. There was no stopping to check on them. The advance had to continue.

A lone tree had survived the shelling, surrounded by craters that he saw other Tommies scrambling down, through and out of.

Great pools of water collected in their centre and he saw a couple of men drop face first into them. They didn’t move.

“Move up, move up!” Lieutenant Follow was yelling, waving his troop forward.

Pike slipped down into one of the craters, edging around the water, not trusting the depth was shallow enough to ford safely. Sam kept pace with him.

The noise of war was all encompassing. The chatter of machine guns. The bark of rifles and pistols. The screams of the wounded, the gasps of the dying. The enraged bellows of those who still advanced and fought and burned for vengeance.

Now came the explosions as grenades flew from the enemy trench.

Pike and Sam closed on Lieutenant Follow, who had been forced to slow by the barbed wire that blocked their way. Men were cutting and moving through it.

Pike risked a glance behind. They were starting to bunch up, all looking for the path through.

He had barely realised that they made an inviting target before men started to drop as though they were the wheat in a harvest field.

Explosions drew closer as their range was found, Follow was bellowing, men were screaming.

The snap and crack of the bullets passing him were louder.

Grunts and gasps of the wounded were followed by the screams of the mortally wounded.

“Forward. Move forward. Spread out.” Follow’s voice carried a confidence Pike wasn’t sure he felt any more.

Barbed wire snagged his trousers and as he pulled at them to free himself, a roar filled the world and he felt himself lifted from his feet.

He found Ginger first. Left leg missing from just above the knee, left arm gone from the shoulder. Face pale, unable to speak, gasping for each dwindling breath. He could see the man’s eyes, once full of mischief, now suffused with pain and misery, slowly losing their focus. 

Ginger died.

Calderwell was missing an ear and looked dazed. he couldn’t hear a word Pike said to him, his eyes stared blankly at the mud in front of him. Shell shock, Pike thought, he wasn’t going to be able to help him much. Better to leave him where he was until the assault was over.

Ducking and weaving, he made his way through the field of carnage, checking bodies to see if anyone was still alive. Too many of his friends were still, life stolen from them in an instant. He followed the sound of voices until he came to one of the craters around the tree. Sergeant Carter was there, with Bert Willis and Noddy Cole.

“Sarge.” Pike called out as he slipped down the slope to them.

“Pike? Still alive?” Carter asked.

“Yes, Sarge. What do we do now?”

“We go up and onwards, lad. Up and onwards. Give the Hun blood and thunder.”

Bert and Noddy were in agreement. “We can’t go back, Pike. Not yet, they’ll shoot us for deserters.”

“Now then, my boys, that is not the attitude. Don’t you want to make them pay for what they did to your mates?”

Noddy and Bert gave a reluctant grunt of agreement.

“Did the Lieutenant make it, Sarge? I was right by him when we all got blown up.”

“I don’t know, lad. I’ve only seen you three still moving so far. If he’s out there, I’m sure he’s moving on. So we need to follow him, make sure he doesn’t claim all the glory by himself.” The sergeant let out a hearty bellow that put some of the fire back into Pike’s soul.

“Follow me, boys.” The sergeant scrambled up the crater’s slope. The three Tommies raced after him, none of them wanting to be left alone.

The day still wasn’t heating up, the mist lay across No Man’s Land still, making shapes of men. Their moans and roars coming from all directions. Pike found himself concentrating more on the voices than the sounds of battle. Listening out for Sam, hoping his little mate had survived. Wanting to keep his promise.

Keeping close, the small squad of four slipped and slid from pit to cover, broken walls, fallen trees, anything that offered a moment’s respite from the constant hail of metal that flowed towards them.

“Keep moving, chaps. Forward, close the gaps. Let them see you don’t scare easily.”

Pike pointed over to their left “That’s the Lieutenant. I recognise his voice.”

They all looked and saw the tall shape of a man moving through the mist.

“Support the officer!” Carter bellowed, leading them through the mud.

They ran and slipped, calling out to Follow.

Pike moved easier than the others, perhaps they had picked up minor injuries. He reached the Lieutenant first.

He was leaning on a post that had lost half its length. Pike saw dried blood covering the right hand side of his face. His eye crusted shut. He held his revolver in hand and was firing towards the Hun, loudly exhorting the men to charge.

“I’m here, Sir.”

“Who’s that? You’re on my blind side, I’m afraid.”

“Pike, Sir. Are you alone? Sergeant Carter is right behind me, with a couple of other blokes.”

Lieutenant Follow looked around “I had some men with me, Stone, Evershaw, Jones and Jackson. I think there were a couple of others from another company, they must have got lost.”

Sam had been with him? Pike looked around, but the only other British soldiers he could see were the three members of his small squad closing in.

 “I don’t see them, Sir. Have you any idea where they are? I can try to form us up.”

The officer shook his head “They were behind me as we came out of a crater, back there.”

“Leave it with me, Sir.” Pike turned to Sergeant Carter as he arrived “The lieutenant is injured, Sarge. I’m going back to see if I can find the men he says he had with him.”

“Very well, Pike. Back in two minutes. If you can’t find them by then, you won’t find them. We’ll patch up the officer and move out without you if you aren’t back.”

Pike nodded and raced off towards the crater the lieutenant had pointed out, hearing Carter’s voice as he did so “What have we here then, Sir? Got a boo-boo? We’ll soon have you patched up.”

The mud sucked at him as he ran, each step was a battle against inertia and fading hope. The sounds of battle seemed distant, the focus of fire being directed away from where he travelled. Pike thanked God for a small mercy and redoubled his efforts to reach the crater before he was spotted.

His prayers answered, he slid into the mud pit left behind by an artillery shell only to feel despair grip him.

Jackson and Jones lay together at the foot of the slope. Jones was missing an eye, Jackson was pale and motionless beneath him. They must have been cut down as the breached the top of the slope, their bodies tumbling down together. 

Someone was feebly trying to crawl up the far side of the crater. Pike made his way over to them and found Evershaw, bleeding out, blindly crawling. He took no notice of Pike’s attempts to communicate before his efforts stopped and he slid, lifeless to the bottom.

Grief threatened to overwhelm him, he still couldn’t see Sam.

Walking back towards the two two corpses where he had come down, he stepped a wide path around them and trod on something soft under the mud.

He heard a grunt.

Frantically he dug into the mud, realising he had trodden on a leg.

It was quick work to uncover Sam, who came up spluttering and coughing. His eyes widened when he saw who had saved him.

“Pikey? How?”

“Luck, mate. Just luck.” He pulled Sam to his feet. “Come on, the Lieutenant and Sarge are waiting for us.”

“I can’t go up there. Not again.” Sam looked on the verge of tears.

Pike yanked on Sam’s shirt “You bloody well can. You’re not going to leave our mates to do this alone, are you?”

“It’s too far.” Sam wailed.

“Too far? Too bloody far? How far did I tell you we had to go when we started?”

“Two hundred yards.”

“And how far can you throw a grenade?”

“I don’t know, forty yards?”

“Exactly, we’ve already done over half of it. Come on, Sam. Last push. Make them pay for what they’ve done to our lads.”

“Pikey, I’m scared.”

“Course you are. So am I. Have to be a raving loon not to be, but that’s what we’re here for. We face our fears so your old Mum doesn’t need to be afraid of the Hun breaking down her front door. Now come on.”

Pike started to drag Sam up the slope, within a few steps he didn’t need to, his friend finding reserves of courage to make his own way up.

The mist was still hanging over the ground as the crested the slope but Pike could see the squad ahead of them, they were just starting to move.

He opened his mouth to yell they were coming when the focus of battle flowed back their way. He and Sam were forced to duck and move, hugging the little cover they could find.

The Lieutenant was leading the small squad, Pike saw Sergeant Carter hurl a grenade forwards.

“Come on, Sam. Nearly there. Pick up your feet.”

Cajoling and encouraging, Pike led Sam through the dips and gullets left by the days of shelling. They were within paces of the small squad when the officer leapt with a scream of rage, followed by the others. They had reached the trench.

“Faster, Sam. We’ve got to help hem.”

Blood up, the two of them raced the last few feet and hurled themselves down into the German trench.

Nobby was throwing a grenade down the length of it. The Sergeant was charging a small group of Germans who looked unsure whether to stand their ground or flee until he speared the first of them with his bayonet. That decided it for them and they ran.

Bert lay, clasped in a death embrace with a German soldier, his bayonet through the Hun’s chest, the German’s knife buried in his throat.

Lieutenant Follow fired his revolver, yelling for them to order up, to stay together.

Pike spotted a German officer creep out from a dug out, aiming his own pistol at Follow’s back. before he could warn his officer, Sam’s rifle spoke and the German collapsed.

Sam began screaming as he charged into battle.

Pike looked for any enemies to engage. They were all running as more Tommies flowed over the trench. They had done it.

Sam was full of battle rage, firing and moving, supporting the Lieutenant. Nobby and the Sergeant were routing the few that were left to face them.

“I think they’ve got it, lad.”

Pike recognised that voice and turned to see Ginger, stood beside him.

“Anyone got a smoke? I’d die for a fag.”

Looking the other way, he saw Jones and Jackson smiling.

“You’re dead. All three of you. I saw you.” He said, unbelieving.

“Funny that.” Ginger replied.

“What’s funny?” Pike demanded, noticing the sounds of battle were receding and the mist was filling the trench, whiting out the world.

“Funny that you saw us dead. Because, Pikey, we all saw you get blown up.”

“I got blown down. Didn’t kill me.”

Jackson chuckled “It did, son. I saw your arm come off. You were dead before you hit the ground.”

“No I wasn’t.”

Ginger poked him “You got blown up by a grenade that landed at your feet. Where’s your injuries? Are you hurt at all?”

Pike took the time to look down at himself. His uniform was clean, not spattered with mud and blood as it should have been. He felt no pain, felt nothing actually.

Mist surrounded them.

“Oh.”

“You got the kid here, got him to do his job. I think you’re done, lad.” Ginger said, kindly.

Faint cheers of the victorious Brits filled the air.

“So, what do we do now?” Richard asked, feeling free.

The other three shrugged.

“Shall we take a walk and have a look then?”

“Why not.” Said Ginger.

The four of them linked arms, Jackson started whistling It’s a Long Way to Tipperary and they started walking.

This mist swallowed them.

© Robert Spalding 2020