Casca 21: The Trench Soldier Read online

  The trenches were a filthy, stinking mess of lice, leeches, ticks, fleas, rats, mice, cockroaches, and what had started out as men.

  The lines had settled down into semi-permanent communities, a network of holes in the ground, connected by communication trenches, linked to dugouts, backed by duckboarded latrines, dirty cookhouses with their greasy cooks, everlasting mess lines, and uneatable food. Casca thought back over almost twenty centuries of campaigning, and his memory came up with no experience as miserable.

  His long life had been spent in an endless series of army huts and canvas tents occasionally interspersed with hotel rooms and even a few palaces. Only a very few times had he known what might be called a home with a wife and friends, a horse, a cow, a dog. But never for long, and never with the joyful scamper of children around the hearth.

  He had learned to envy men whose lives were short but whose seed might survive forever. His own seed, like his blood, was poisoned by the curse of the Nazarene. Even though he had experienced much and learned a great deal, he could never pass on his knowledge to his progeny.

  But now he found that he felt sorry for his comrades who had once led normal lives. The continuous hell of life in the trenches was as intolerable an existence as he had ever experienced, but for men who had left homes and families, such a life must be an unbearable agony.

  Once in a long while there was mail from home – often as worrying for family men as their own desperate existence at the front. The blockades had carried the war into the homes of the civilian population. Another front had been added – the Home Front. Everything was in short supply on the home front; people were working longer hours and spending more and more of their time in the eternal queues to buy sugar or flour, a pair of shoes, or razor blades.

  Rumors were rife – confusing and contradictory, they were traded back and forth in the trenches and even with the enemy in shouted conversations with lookouts in the opposing lines which were now sometimes only a hundred yards apart.

  "We're moving out." "We're moving up." "We're moving back." "A big push." "A major retirement." "Reinforcements are on the way."

  "Ah, the hell with it," Cockney Dave cursed. "The only rumor we don't hear is that we're stayin' here – and that's all that ever happens."

  The endless siege of the entrenched enemies went on in defiance of all military logic – and contrary to common sense. Suffering, pain, and useless sacrifice became the normal life of men on both sides. The warrior legend was fast losing any romance or glory.

  The marks of combat were showing in the hollow eyes of men whose eyes had become focused in the notorious two-thousand-yard stare.

  More and more men were coming out of the line unwounded but no longer fit for battle. Shell shocked troops were everywhere, mumbling, whispering, crying, or just shaking and shivering. Some men went into a state of terror as their friends died alongside them and then slipped into a torpor from which they could not be roused.

  Nothing worked with these men. Some of the doctors called them "casualties of the spirit" and tried to treat them kindly. Others shouted at them: "Malingerer! Quitter! Coward!"

  The French shot them after drum-head court-martials, but still the disease continued to spread. And it was the same in all the armies.

  The Red Cross distributed Christmas parcels, cough medicines, and uplifting tracts from the Bible. Most of the men were unimpressed, and many did not even open the packages, although some of them contained the wine and cheese they had dreamed of for months.

  Shortly after sunset on Christmas Eve, the desultory artillery fire died down. One after another the machine guns fell silent, and then the sporadic rifle fire died away. A strange silence settled over the front.

  Captain George leaped out of the trench and up onto its mound of earth, ignoring the warning shouts of his friends.

  From out of the swirling winter ground mists solid figures were beginning to appear. The German army was advancing on the British lines. But this advance was like no other that anybody had ever experienced. There was no barrage, not even a rifle shot. The only sound was the faintly musical chant: "Kamerad. Kamerad."

  "What the hell does that mean? Kamerad? Comrade? Is that what they're saying?"

  The field-gray uniforms could now be clearly seen through the gray mist. Every man seemed to be carrying something, but none of their burdens were weapons.

  Then the boy officer saw something he recognized – a goose. A giant German Feldwebel was holding it aloft by the neck; his other raised arm held two bottles. All along the slowly advancing line the young Scot could now discern men wearing bandoliers of sausages, carrying armfuls of cake, bottles of wine, Red Cross parcels. The German soldiers were plodding determinedly through the mud, walking into the British guns, laden with Christmas presents and protected only by the one word: kamerad.

  Captain George turned to shout down into the trench, "Corporal, pass me the wire cutters and some of those comfort parcels."

  The corporal, trained to obey any order, handed up the tool, a bottle of Guinness stout, and a Christmas pudding. George took them from him and jumped down from the mound to start snipping through the coils of barbed wire.

  The amazed corporal watched as his officer dropped the wire cutters into the mud and walked out into no-man's-land through the opening he had made in the wire.

  The Scot and the German met and fell into each other's arms like long lost brothers, the goose dangling down the young officer's back as the German enfolded him in a great hug.

  Then the two men were sitting in the mud, and George was biting the cap from the beer bottle.

  "What's goin' on out there?" Cockney Dave demanded from within the trench.

  "Damned if I know," the corporal replied. "Pass me some of those bottles, will you?" He filled his arms and jumped to the ground, running through the opening in the wire.

  All along the line the same thing was happening. Within minutes the British trench was full of Germans, each with his arm around a Tommy's shoulder and a bottle in his hand.

  Yuletide, Casca remembered in a rush. A pagan festival that predated the birth of Christ by some thousands of years. A time of peace – even the ever war-ready German tribesmen of antiquity had realized that there was no sense in fighting in the snow. So they turned the very depth of winter into a time of peace, forgiveness, and gift giving. It was a time when even the worst enemies could break bread together, even feast mightily in each other's homes while they joked and made light of their differences and disputes.

  And Casca recalled that when Germany was eventually Christianized, the people had accepted the new religion but had refused to give up this midwinter festival. Now it seemed the festival was to survive even in the midst of mechanized war.

  The party lasted all night.

  At dawn the Germans started to leave for their own lines, but at noon there were still some sleeping drunkenly in the British trenches.

  The rumor mill said that the same thing had happened all the way along the hundreds of miles of front, from the North Sea to Switzerland. Some said that even the senior officers had been entertaining each other in their dugouts. Certainly nothing was said about the massive, collective indiscipline, and the guns were silent all through Christmas Day.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  December twenty-sixth dawned red and bloody.

  The Tommies had been standing to since two o'clock, and at four every big gun commenced firing.

  Within seconds answering shots were heard, and high explosive shells were bursting all around the British lines. The Tommies were ordered over the top, and they clambered out, running forward through the exploding shells.

  Fifty yards into no-man's-land they met an advancing horde of Germans, and as the sun came up, it lit them as they butchered each other with rifle fire, bayonets, and bare hands.

  Both the British and the German artillery were pouring shells into the area, and machine gunners from both sides were spraying the embattled troops with
lead. At such close quarters the gunners were killing as many of their own as they were of the enemy.

  But the battle raged on. It seemed as if everybody, from the high command to the gunners to the privates in the line had lost their senses. Successive waves of infantry poured out from both sides, and the number of men struggling and dying grew by the hour.

  The carnage continued throughout the day, and when darkness brought something akin to sanity, Casca learned that the action had been recorded as a "brisk engagement," which in the language of the high command meant fifty per cent casualties.

  One, Casca was appalled to learn, was Captain George.

  He had, as usual, led repeated charges with his beloved bagpipes, with Harry, his drummer boy, beside him, their red jackets and tartan kilts standing out clearly among the khaki uniforms. Harry had collected a bullet through the throat, and while trying to effect a dressing on the wound in the heat of the furious battle, George had fallen to a German bayonet.

  The next morning the battle was rejoined, but this time the British troops were strictly on the defensive. Most of the artillery and almost all of the machine guns had expended all of their available ammunition in the frenzy of the previous day. The Tommies had to crouch in their trenches throughout the early morning barrage that did not cease until the attack by the German infantry came so close that they were running into the shells from their own guns.

  The artillery fire rolled away, but the Germans had developed a new technique and had hauled with them a number of Maxim machine guns with drum magazines which could be operated by one man. The heavy guns had their water cooling hoses detached and could fire almost a thousand rounds before the water in the cooling jacket began to boil.

  They were now able to set up these guns on bipods just outside the British wire and pour concentrated fire directly into the British trenches where the defending machine guns were silent for lack of ammunition.

  It was impossible to face such fire, and the Tommies abandoned their trenches, retreating to the next line of prepared positions. The Germans could not chase them with their heavy, red-hot, steaming machine guns, and the Tommies had a small respite.

  But not for long.

  The Germans recommenced their artillery fire, concentrating on the new positions and laying down such a barrage that the Tommies suffered enormous casualties. Later in the day the Germans again brought up their portable machine guns, and by nightfall another "brisk engagement" was recorded.

  That night Casca found Cockney Dave and asked him if he knew anything of Captain George's death.

  "Yeah," Dave said, "George is not too far away."

  "You know where his body lies?"

  Dave jerked his head toward no-man's-land. "He's out there."

  "Unburied?" Casca sat up with a jerk.

  "Yeah. I thought about bringing him in when I found him, and then later I thought of going back for him with a stretcher and a burial detail. We can do that if you like."

  First light the next morning found a stretcher detail of Casca, Hugh, Cockney Dave, and some others out in no-man's-land, looking down into a shell crater.

  Captain George's face grinned up at them, the lips pulled back in a last grimace that death had softened into a smile. He had one arm around the shoulder of the drummer boy, and their pipes and drum were beside them. The German on whose bayonet he had died was lying on top of him, the point of George's bayonet protruding from his back.

  "How old were they?" Hugh asked.

  "Maybe sixteen," Casca answered. "Harry might be younger."

  In the freezing wind the bodies had not yet begun to decay.

  "This is where they grew up, ain't it?" Cockney Dave said. "They wouldn't want to lie in that military cemetery, all lined up with they don't know who, like being on parade in a strange battalion. But out here, why, they're amongst friends – their own kind – front-line soldiers."

  "Yes, you're right," Casca answered. "This is their place alright."

  They returned to the trenches with the stretchers empty.

  During the night some ammunition wagons had come up, and they were able to withstand the day's attack. But the casualties were still enormous, and Hugh Evans died in one of the murderous onslaughts of the portable Maxim guns.

  The opposing lines were now so close that the Germans had developed a technique for effective rifle fire from trench to trench. They used a small telescope fitted over the sights of their Mausers, and their marksmen could hit any Tommy who was incautious enough to show his head above the earthworks. Striking a match to light a cigarette became especially dangerous. Matches were scarce and precious, but no longer did several men take a light from one match. A German marksman only needed the time it took to light two cigarettes to aim his rifle. To light a third cigarette had become suicidal. And not a few men died shouting: "Put out that light!"

  Some of the surviving Old Contemptibles had served in India and had developed and sharpened the necessary skills for hunting snipe, a small, fast bird, and the favorite game fowl of the British in India. These marksmen, called snipers, were posted on the earthworks to answer the threat of the German sharpshooters.

  Winter dragged on. Actions were attempted in the freezing mud and snow, and there were huge casualties on both sides, but no territory changed hands.

  The battalion was thrown into a mid-February attack on the German entrenchments in the eastern Champagne district.

  The German line had been impregnably strengthened. They had made a catacomb of the hills overlooking the Allied trenches. Dugouts had been timbered with huge beams and reinforced with concrete. There were underground arsenals, aid stations, gun repair shops, even laundries.

  Day after day for weeks the combined British and French force attempted to dislodge the Germans, and when after six weeks the attack was called off, they had not yielded so much as a foxhole in return for some thirty thousand Allied casualties.

  A ragged copy of The Times appeared in the British trenches. It reported an eloquent speech in which Lloyd George had praised the troops for their ascent of "the glittering peaks of sacrifice," and also announced the doubling of the income tax from nine pence to a shilling and sixpence per pound. Turkey had entered the war on the side of the Central Powers. There were reinforcements of a quarter of a million men ready to leave England for France, and contingents from the British dominions were on their way. The newspaper also castigated the lack of ammunition for the British forces that had become a major scandal with threats of a change of government in London.

  The paper also had a headline: GREAT AIR RAID IN HISTORY. A number of British planes had taken off from Dover and Dunkirk and bombed a power station, a sailing ship, harbor warehouses, a railway station, transport on the Ghistelles Road, and a boat towing some barges. The surprise attacks panicked the civilian victims, resulting in evacuations and work stoppages. Five of the twenty-one planes did not return.

  Life in the trenches got worse every day. When the troops were not being uselessly sacrificed in hopeless assaults on the entrenched Germans, their time was spent in boredom, digging latrines, cleaning each other of lice, and freezing in the damp and the Arctic wind.

  Cockney Dave went west in one more hopeless attack on the German fortress. Casca was leading his squad in a charge, and they had made it almost to the wire when a Maxim that had remained silent suddenly opened fire right in front of them. Dave fell backwards into a shell crater, and Casca tumbled down beside him.

  "Comes as a surprise," Cockney Dave said in wonder. "Funny, ain't it? Shouldn't be no surprise, but somehow it is. Make sure that little widder gets me final pay, will you?" He gave a tired, resigned smile and died.

  Casca stood up so that his head was about level with the lip of the crater. Slowly and carefully he fired shot after shot until he killed the whole of the machine gun crew. "Nothing personal," he muttered as he lined up each man in his sights and deliberately squeezed the trigger.

  Then he was up and running for the wire, t
ugging the pins from Mills bombs. He lobbed the grenades into the wire entanglements and was running through the blasted gap before the smoke had cleared, dropping two more grenades into the trench. He made it into the trench and moved along it, shooting from the hip, as the few survivors of his squad followed behind him.

  They had cleared quite a length of the trench when they encountered a determined group of Germans armed with a new chemical weapon, the Flammenwerfer.

  Casca was in the lead, and was sprayed with the thick, blazing fuel. His clothes and hair ignited, his skin turned to charcoal. He dropped to the floor of the trench, huge chunks of his skin cracking away to expose the bleeding flesh beneath.

  His men turned and ran, and the Germans ran after them.

  Casca, near death, lay still in the bottom of the trench, but his mind was racing. He seemed to be looking at the battle from above, as if he were in a balloon. He saw his body lying in the mud, surrounded by dead comrades and dying Germans.

  "Well, so much for this war," he thought, "I'm glad to be out of it – senseless fucking charade."

  Then he was watching a parade of all the men he had known who had died in these fields, from Captain George to the brave fool Major Blandings. They were moving away toward the distant hills but with their faces turned toward him as if waiting for him to join them. Cockney Dave was bringing up the rear, and he turned back to salute and smile. And he saw another procession of horror-struck faces and mangled bodies, and he recognized the men that he had killed in this war.

  He had no doubt that he was dying, and the ancient curse of the Nazarene no longer seemed to relate to him. Almost two thousand years of fighting vanished from his memory, crowded out by the enormous numbers of men he had seen die since he had landed in France less than a year ago.

  Somebody threw a grenade, and it exploded a few yards beyond Casca's head. Some empty ammunition crates absorbed the shrapnel but not the concussion, and he slipped into merciful unconsciousness.