Casca 21: The Trench Soldier Read online

  "But I know exactly where the hospital is. I can find it in minutes – anybody else might be blundering around for hours."

  "Aye, I daresay ye can find the hospital, but finding the boy might be another matter. Maybe the Germans have found him. I'm sorry, Cass, but what we've got now is too valuable to lose. I wouldn't risk another man after him if he were me own brother.

  Casca couldn't argue. The moon had come out again, and it might well be foolhardy to go looking for a man who might already be a prisoner.

  They waited another five minutes, and George had just given the order to move back when Hugh spoke. "There's somebody crossing the river," he said, "a ways upstream. Can I go look?"

  Sergeant George agreed reluctantly. "But whatever ye find, come right back."

  Hugh slipped quietly away and they waited. In a few minutes Casca heard a movement. He eased back his rifle bolt and closed it gently, the hammer cocked behind the round in the breech. There was a low whistle, and Sergeant George answered. A moment later they heard Hugh's voice, quiet but urgent. "Don't shoot, it's us." And a minute later he and Dave were climbing the knoll.

  Dave grinned sheepishly in the moonlight. "Sorry, mates. I've never been out in the country alone before. It ain't like Lunnon, is it? Not a bleedin' gaslight nor a street sign anywhere. And no bobbies to ask the way, either."

  Casca had to stifle a laugh.

  "Did you find a hospital?" George demanded.

  "Oh yeah," the Cockney replied, "that part was easy. It's right where Cass said it would be. Gettin' back 'ere was the part that flummoxed me."

  "Let's go get that bridge," George said, and they moved off in three parties as they had come.

  Casca was relieved that Sergeant George had decided to destroy the bridge. He endorsed the decision but was even more relieved that he didn't have to make it himself.

  "Och, mon," George had laughed at his concern. "It's only a wee bridge. It won't win or lose the war either way. I've seen a bit too much of high strategy to care too much for it. Strategy is the name the high command gives to whatever happens to work – and not too much that comes out of the high command does work. If it don't work, they call it faulty tactics, and blame it on bad decision making in the field. If it turns out that we need the bridge, then it's just too bad. After what I've seen tonight, I sure don't want the Jerries using it against us." He broke into a low chuckle. "And, boy, won't they be surprised when it blows. That makes this whole caper worthwhile."

  When they got to the river, it was bathed in bright moonlight. The clouds had blown away, the wind had died, and now there were a dozen or so German soldiers strolling back and forth on the bridge. There were more Germans by the fire on the north bank and, no doubt, more inside the guard hut and still more patrolling the area. If the decision had not already been made, Casca would have been for abandoning the attempt, crossing farther downstream, and heading for home.

  As it was, they proceeded according to the set plan.

  Casca and Dave moved directly on the bridge, approaching as close to the guard hut as they dared. Then they waited. In the still night they could hear every footfall on the bridge and the conversation of the men by the fire.

  A sudden explosion around the river bend upstream was followed by a furious fusillade of rifle fire and then another explosion.

  The Germans on the bridge came running back to the north bank. Those around the fire leapt to their feet and scurried about for their arms. Another four or five men stumbled sleepily out of the hut. A sergeant shouted orders, and most of the men set off at a run in the direction of the shots. As they reached the bend in the river, a similar eruption came from downstream. The running men came to a startled halt. The sergeant who had stayed at the bridge screamed at them and they ran on. He bellowed at the men around him, and they ran off in the direction of the new outburst.

  Casca and Dave smiled at each other as they pulled the pins from two Mills bombs. Casca lobbed his toward the sergeant. Dave bowled his underarm down the slope toward the shots.

  There were two loud detonations and bright orange flashes, and the sergeant and the fire disappeared.

  Casca and Dave charged straight at the bridge. The single soldier left standing fired at them, but his shot went wide, and he was still working the bolt of his rifle when Casca's bayonet opened his gut.

  "Messy fucking way to kill," he grumbled as he jerked the bayonet free, and the German fell into the puddle of his own blood and intestines.

  They ran across the bridge and raced along the bank. Casca found the fuses and lit them while Dave was running for the lines to the Mills bombs.

  "Forget the grenades," Casca shouted, and the two of them turned and ran up the steep bank.

  At the top, they stopped to look back.

  Upstream the startled Germans were looking back toward the now deserted bridge while just a few yards beyond them, out of sight around the river bend, George and his two Tommies were splashing across the stream. Downstream another bunch of confused soldiers were also staring at the bridge while Hugh and his mate were rushing into the river.

  Casca and Dave opened fire on both groups. The range was rather long, but their fire added to the confusion of the leaderless troops. Both parties ran back toward the bridge. They arrived in time to be blown into the air with the stones and steel.

  The Tommies abandoned all caution and ran, whooping and shouting for their own distant lines.

  There was no pursuit. They ran until they were out of breath and then huddled in a shell crater to rest. Before dawn they were calling to the sentries in their own lines, and by daybreak headquarters had fully confirmed details of the enemy positions as well as a report on the demolition of the bridge.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The high command was at last beginning to realize that the war was not likely to be won by sending increasing numbers of infantry into the muzzles of entrenched machine guns.

  The original British Expeditionary Force had been decimated, and the few survivors of the ninety thousand elite riflemen were already being referred to as "The Old Contemptibles," a name they accepted with pride.

  A new tactic was to be employed, designated "fire and maneuver," whereby brief, high-intensity attacks were to be followed by rapid movement to a different area of the front where the tactic would be repeated. The first trial of this new tactic was to be in the probing of the enemy troop concentration discovered through the balloon reconnaissance and its subsequent confirmation.

  One battalion under the irascible Major Blandings was to make the attempt. George Brotherstone was to command the lead platoon and had been promoted to second lieutenant. When Casca congratulated the ex-piper-boy, he laughed bitterly.

  "Och, mon, it's not too hard to get promoted here. At the rate we're losing men, some of the cooks will be promoted to general before it's over – they'll be the only ones left with any idea of how the army's supposed to work. "

  The Scot lowered his voice. "And anyway, this brilliant new tactic is no bloody good – not for these circumstances, anyway. You can bet some smart Johnny thought it up a month ago, and it's taken till now to get it approved. So now they're going to try it whether it's appropriate or not.

  "Now that we know where they're strong and where they're not, we should hit 'em full force in the weak spot. If this pussy-footing fails, we'll lose most of the men we have left. And if it succeeds, we'll be inside their lines with not enough men to capture a cookhouse."

  Casca had already come to this conclusion himself, and his pessimism increased when he learned that the battalion was being sent directly against one of the strongest German concentrations he had identified. But the high command apparently considered that the enemy could be hurt most where they had the most troops.

  Subalterns were supposed to lead infantry charges with a swagger stick, but George wore kilt and sporran and carried his bagpipes. Alongside him marched Harry, the boy drummer who had marched with him into his first action at Mons. As they wa
ited for the order to move out, Casca admired the engraving of George's silver mounted pipes.

  "Aye, the black sticks of the devil, the Protestants called them, but they have an honorable history," George said. "The Macpherson of Macpherson played them at Culloden in seventeen 'forty-six. And before that, he played them in the 'forty-five," George chuckled softly. "And, about fifty years before the uprising, an ancestor of mine, one Jamie MacLeish, played them at his own hanging."

  "He was a rebel?" Casca asked.

  "No," George laughed, "he was a cattle thief."

  They left the British lines before dawn and were half a mile into no-man's land when the first of the German artillery opened up on their trenches.

  "Aiming to soften us up, like always," Hugh Edwards grunted.

  "Aye," said George, "which means there'll be one hell of an infantry attack in an hour or so. We'll likely run into them about the River Vesle. "

  "And they'll likely be about ten times our strength," said Hugh.

  "Aye, you can bet on that," George answered. "Nothing mysterious at all about this war – except to the high command. If we could just get one of those generals out here, in five minutes he'd learn more about real strategy than they ever taught him in his five years at Sandhurst Military College."

  They advanced steadily over the uneven ground and were approaching the Vesle when the point company got their first sighting of enemy troops. A large contingent, at least a battalion, was moving in close order down the long slope toward the destroyed bridge. But the rolling nature of the ground hid the river and the ruined bridge from them.

  "D'ye think maybe they don't know about the bridge?" George pondered.

  "I'll bet they don't," Casca answered. "Maybe somewhere, somebody knows, but these fellas are sure to be moving on yesterday's orders, just like we usually are."

  "My thinking exactly," said Lieutenant George. "And I'm thinking I might vary my orders a wee bit. `Fire and maneuver,' they said. Not so very different from `maneuver and fire, is it?"

  Casca laughed in delight at George's ready bending of the sacred dicta of the high command but felt that he should warn him against insubordination which was regarded in the British Army as akin to treason.

  "Oh, I ken well enough they'll want my hide if it goes wrong," the young subaltern answered, "but there's nobody out here with any rank to raise a complaint – and if I fuck up, I likely won't make it back, so how are they going to punish me then?" He pointed up the slope covered with field-gray uniforms. There were perhaps five thousand men and hundreds of mules which appeared to be carrying machine guns and mortars. "We're outnumbered at least two to one and outgunned maybe ten to one. What are our chances of winning a confrontation?"

  "Not too good," Casca replied.

  "Well," George went on, "in a few minutes, they'll be hidden in the dead ground beyond the river, and we could use that time to get across the river. If we can stay out of sight till they get to where they expect to cross the bridge, we should be able to take them in the rear."

  "Good plan," Casca agreed, "but d'you think Major Blandings will buy it?"

  "I don't intend to ask him," George answered easily. "I want you to run back to the main body of our troops and lead the major across the stream where we came back last night – beyond the upstream bend. That way he'll be out of sight of the Jerries, and will come up behind them anyway. I'll take the platoon downstream, and we'll have them in a pincers."

  Casca was already moving. An excellent plan, he thought, and too good to risk spoiling through bad timing. He hurried back to where the rest of the battalion was about to move up the slope to the ridge above the river. He gave the ill- tempered major the minimum of information necessary to get him to comply with George's plan.

  "Message from Lieutenant Brotherstone, sir. A large enemy force is approaching the demolished bridge and may be unaware of its condition. If you skirt this ridge and cross upstream, the Germans won't know of our presence."

  Major Blandings looked down his long nose at Casca. "My orders, Corporal, are to engage the enemy. Taking into account your information, the best way to ensure engagement is still to continue direct to the bridge."

  "Yes, sir." Casca desperately racked his brain for something to say that might prevent the major throwing away the lives of most of the battalion. He improvised desperately. "Lieutenant Brotherstone is concerned that when they find that the bridge is out, the Germans will cross upstream and outflank us."

  "Mmm, yes, we must eliminate that possibility."

  He ordered a single platoon to move to where Casca had suggested and another to the downstream ford, instructing them to prevent the enemy from crossing at all costs. He continued to march the rest of the troops directly up the slope, and had no choice but to go with them. When they gained the ridge, they could see the German troops milling about on the far bank, trying to get organized to cross the river by the ruins of the bridge.

  Downstream Casca could see George and his platoon already across the river but still out of sight of the Germans. Upstream the detached platoon had reached the riverbank.

  Major Blandings positioned his scant weaponry on the ridge. The battalion had only been provided with two machine guns but had managed to obtain two more abandoned by retreating French troops. Ammunition, as always, was in short supply, especially for the 8mm belt-fed Hotchkiss weapons acquired from the French. There were also two five-inch guns, but men and mules were still struggling to drag these up the slope.

  The Germans had now sighted the British contingent and were setting up their guns on the opposite bank. Casca could see at least six 105mm howitzers, one huge 150mm, and countless machine guns and mortars. The slaughter was about to commence – and it was clear that few of the British troops could possibly survive. Casca resolved to try to implement what he could of Lieutenant George's plan.

  "Permission to rejoin my platoon, sir?"

  "Permission granted, Corporal. My compliments to Lieutenant Brotherstone."

  Casca saluted and hurried away down the back slope, heading not for George's platoon but for the one that had been detached to hold the upstream crossing.

  As he ran he heard the German guns open fire, and shells started falling at random about the area. Not for long, he thought. The Germans would quickly get the range and concentrate their fire on the exposed British troops, and then there would be a massacre.

  The platoon at the river was under the command of a pink-cheeked second lieutenant. Following the major's orders, he had his men digging in for a determined stand on the south bank. In this position, they would have no part in the battle and once the German force was across the river, would be easily taken from the rear.

  There was nothing to do but to lie.

  Casca saluted the young lieutenant. "Message from Major Blandings. This platoon is to ford the river and fall upon the enemy's right flank."

  The lieutenant nodded. The tactic would be suicidal but made as much sense to him as waiting out of the fight. He quickly ordered his men out, and in a few minutes the entire platoon was wading toward the north bank of the stream. Once ashore, they wheeled right, and as they advanced around the river bend, came upon the German flank. For just a few seconds they had the element of surprise and made good use of it, firing rapidly into the packed Germans whose attention had been entirely to their front.

  But then the Germans turned, and their superior Mauser rifles with larger magazines quickly outmatched the firepower of the British battalion. Mercifully all of the German machine guns and mortars had been hauled to the bridge the Germans had expected to cross, and were now concentrated on the Tommies on the opposite slope across the river so that the entire duel on this bank went on with rifles.

  The scanty issue of twenty-five rounds per man was quickly used up, and Casca heard the order he dreaded: “Fix bayonets!"

  A little more than a hundred bayonets were about to fall upon the flank of a force of five thousand men, all plentifully supplied with ammun
ition.

  Casca recalled the time, nineteen centuries earlier, when he had gone into action for the first time against the huge German barbarians whose wild ferocity had made them almost a match for the legions of Rome.

  Disciplined legions of hand-picked Romans, he groaned inwardly, trained to a pitch of physical fitness and martial excellence, well fed, highly paid and rewarded. And brilliantly led. And always the legions of Rome were better armed and organized than any enemy they faced. The Roman soldiers had confronted the Germans in tight ranks, each man's shield interlocked with the next to form a protective wall. And the upstroke of the Roman short sword turned the short stature of the Romans to advantage against the German giants.

  Casca's heart sank as he glanced at his British comrades. Short and slightly built, most of them had never enjoyed a decent meal in their lives and certainly not in this army.

  "Charge!"

  The young subaltern was on his feet, swagger stick in one hand, a six-shot revolver in the other, running directly toward the German troops. Behind him his Tommies ran forward, the morning sun glinting from their steel.

  As Casca ran with them, he glanced across the river. From the top of the ridge, the two five-inch guns had at last opened fire, and shells were falling on the densely gathered Germans around the bridge approach. The four machine guns were also taking a toll.

  But the German machine gunners were having a field day as the two thousand Tommies charged down the slope directly into the muzzles of the Maxims on the opposite ridge. Then the platoon was closing with the enemy. Casca saw a dozen startled faces, mainly blond, and most of them very large men. Casca picked out the biggest of them and charged directly at him.

  Now Casca could see the Germans' faces. They looked surprised but not frightened; more annoyed, like men engaged in serious work disturbed by a bunch of schoolboys. Although detached from their main force, they had the confidence of their numbers. And the generally puny size of the British troops was a poor match for their brawn.