Casca 21: The Trench Soldier Read online

The mules arrived to carry away some of the wounded, the exhausted medics doing what they could for those that could not be evacuated. More ammunition arrived, but nowhere near enough it seemed to Casca.

  And a colonel appeared on a bay horse, the highest ranking officer Casca had seen since he had first landed in France. The colonel promoted George to captain, as it seemed the blindly heroic Major Blandings had exposed himself to the enemy fire once too often and had died urging his men into one more fruitless effort at the impossible.

  There was also a field telegraph unit with an enormous length of copper wire that they had unwound all the way from headquarters. Through this marvelous invention the HQ staff officers would be able to keep in touch with the battle that was certain to erupt at dawn the next day.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Casca woke from a nightmare of empty guns and ranting officers to another nightmare of bursting high explosive and screaming men.

  It still wanted an hour till daylight, but the German artillery was laying down an immense bombardment, raining high explosive shells along the ridge where the Tommies were dug in, onto the now empty trenches, and reaching for the British heavy guns farther back. Shells were bursting everywhere, from the farthest ridge to the slopes and down into the gulch below the British position.

  Most of these shells were going to waste, but it seemed that the Germans had plenty to spare, and those that did land anywhere near the British lines caused extensive casualties.

  Captain George summoned Casca and he hurried to the tiny dugout where the boy officer was hunched over a table. The telegraph equipment was set up on an ammunition chest nearby. George unrolled a military map. He pointed to the mile or so of territory between the Vesle River and the Aisne River.

  "I'm not too familiar with this map reading business. You've seen all this from the air," he said. "Can ye tell me just where we are and where they are?"

  Casca quickly related everything that he had seen from the balloon, pointing out the main features on the map, and reading off their coordinates. The young man showed a ready grasp of the details.

  He turned to the nearby telegrapher and dictated a message: "Suffering intensive bombardment on all quarters. Urgently request reinforcements and replenishment of ammunition."

  He grinned at Casca. "I know damned well there's no reinforcements and no ammunition, neither."

  He had barely finished speaking when the Morse key started sounding an incoming message. The telegrapher wrote letter by letter as he decoded the message: "No reinforcements available. Cannot supply more ammunition. Attack direct north at eight ack emma."

  "Great," George grunted. "Attack? With what? Without reinforcements and without ammunition? And what for? Even if we could make a breakthrough, it would be pointless without reinforcements. It's just a bloody sacrifice. We're not going to win this war by committing suicide."

  He turned and moved across the trench, his foot tangling in the telegraph wire and jerking the instrument to the floor. Very deliberately his boot came down on the receiver.

  "Pity, I think I've broken it. Can ye fix it?" he asked the telegrapher.

  "Yes, sir."

  "More pity," George muttered almost under his breath. "Well, we've got to do something, but sure as hell, I'm not going to attack that hill again. D'ye think they'll attack again?" he asked Casca.

  "I'm sure they will."

  "Me too. And there's more of them every day, and less and less of us."

  The bombardment dwindled and ceased. On the distant ridge, a long line of gray uniforms appeared.

  George turned to the only other officer, a young second lieutenant a few years older than himself. "Here's what we're going to do, m'boy. We're going to wait here until those Jerries are within arm's reach of us before we fire a shot. I'll give the word. And every time they retreat, we'll stop firing until they come back. We're desperately short of ammunition, and we're going to make every bullet count."

  He turned to a runner: "My compliments to our gunners. Their orders are to fire at will while the enemy is advancing and to hold their fire when they retreat. "

  The distant gray line started to move down the slope, and the five-inch guns opened fire. The gunners were getting better each day, and they moved their aim down the slope as the Germans advanced, taking a continuous and heavy toll. But there seemed to be no end to the Germans, and whenever the line wavered or turned back, a fresh wave of troops would appear behind them, and the attack would move forward again.

  The first wave of Germans eventually reached the dead ground at the bottom of the long slope and started across the flat, taking heavy punishment from the British artillery.

  Then they were starting up the nearer slope, and the British machine guns opened up. The Germans broke and ran. At the bottom of the slope, they ran full tilt into the next advancing troops and they milled about in confusion while the artillery and machine guns tore them to pieces.

  German junior officers and NCOs ran about the confused troops and quickly brought them back into some sort of order. The uphill advance started again. The British artillery fire moved back up the long hill where more Germans were advancing.

  Casca waited at the edge of his foxhole, his rifle trained on a German officer. They came closer and closer, men falling to the machine guns.

  Suddenly the bagpipes sounded, and every British rifle spoke at once.

  Scores of Germans fell, then more, and again more. They were so close and so densely packed behind each other as they struggled up the steep incline that the Tommies could scarcely miss.

  Another fierce volley tore through their ranks, and they fled in wild retreat.

  Again the fleeing troops ran pell-mell into their own comrades advancing behind them, but this time those in retreat could not be turned, and soon the entire German line was moving back away. But not for long.

  Fresh troops under fresh officers emerged from the German trenches, sweeping toward the British positions in long, gray waves. But the shape of the ground prevented the German machine guns from supporting the foot soldiers, while the British machine guns decimated them as soon as they came close.

  Captain George seemed to be everywhere, and especially wherever the fighting was fiercest. He moved from one end of the British line to the other, shouting encouragement, bellowing orders, every so often playing a riotous, skirling chorus on his pipes.

  The telegrapher managed to repair his damaged instrument, and it chattered away with messages from HQ. George replied each time with the same message, confirming continuous engagement with the enemy, and requesting reinforcements and ammunition.

  The sun passed overhead, and still the confrontation continued. There were dead and dying Germans littered all across the landscape, from the distant ridge where they were entrenched to within a few yards of the British-held ridge. But George's defensive tactic was effective, and no German soldier made it into the British lines. Until late in the afternoon when once again the borrowed French machine guns ran out of ammunition, and even the riflemen were begging bullets from each other.

  A fiercely determined assault brought some Germans right to the peak of the ridge and, as luck would have it, at a point in the line where many men were running short of ammunition.

  Bayonets alone couldn't hold off the attackers, and some of them dislodged Tommies from their foxholes. But Captain George had foreseen this possibility, and he sounded the retreat.

  The Tommies needed no second urging and abandoned their position, running back to the line of trenches from which they had launched their first attack. George insisted that they drag with them the Hotchkisses as well as the two functioning machine guns.

  In the new lines George repeated the defense tactic, fighting only when he was forced to, when the enemy was too close to do otherwise.

  A series of explosions along the ridge killed or wounded most of the victorious Germans and sent the survivors scurrying back toward their own lines. The handful of sappers had been busy mining
the ridge for three days. Now, they detonated fresh charges each time there were enough Germans on the ridge to warrant it.

  When darkness brought an end to the action, both the British and the Germans occupied the same positions they had three days earlier.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Casca got his promised pass. But only because, unexpectedly, the whole of Captain George's force was pulled out of the line, paid, and allowed leave. Almost to a man they headed for Paris.

  There was no transport, and they moved on foot. The road ran past several burned-out villages. The slopes of the low hills were a maze of trenches dotted with large shell craters. Every bridge they came to had been destroyed by dynamite or shelling, and most of them had been replaced by new, lightweight structures hastily rigged into place by French army engineers.

  The only trees to be seen were blackened, leafless trunks or blasted, charred stumps. They passed the ruins of houses and barns. Where a wall still stood, it was generally riddled with bullet holes.

  Everywhere there were shell fragments, unexploded shells, spent cartridge cases, discarded webbing, packs, abandoned rifles and bayonets, bits and pieces of military uniforms, even boots, and parts of broken carts. Strips of bloodied bandages blew about in the light autumn breeze. Stinking corpses of horses and mules were everywhere, and shallow graves of men were identified by rifles standing butt uppermost in the earth, often bearing a blood-stained uniform cap.

  They came to a village adjoining an army barracks. As they passed the gates, they swung open and a small procession emerged. A handful of French soldiers carrying rifles were escorting another soldier in handcuffs. Behind them a small donkey was pulling a flat cart carrying a pinewood coffin. A fat priest brought up the rear.

  The prisoner was marched to a post where he was tied and blindfolded. The priest whispered a few words in his ear and made the sign of the cross. The lieutenant shouted, "Aim! Fire!" Shots rang out, and the prisoner slumped in his bonds. Then the lieutenant walked to him and fired a single shot into his ear from his revolver.

  As the escort passed on their way back to the barracks, Casca asked one of them what the prisoner's offence had been.

  "Incitement to mutiny," was the short reply.

  After a few miles they came to areas where there had been no fighting. Houses and barns still stood, but they were abandoned and empty. Most of the fields had been stripped of their produce either by the fleeing farmers or by marauding troops.

  Another few miles and they came upon some few civilians. Farmers stared suspiciously at them as they passed the fields. Women and children ran to hide.

  Then they were on the outskirts of Paris. Well dressed women were everywhere, but the only men to be seen were walking antiques. Every able-bodied Frenchman was at the front. Except, of course, the politicians who had made their escape to Bordeaux, leaving the city in the care of Military Governor, General Joseph Gallieni.

  They passed a news stand, and Casca bought a copy of the Paris Herald, the city's English language newspaper, and the only one on the stand, as the French newspaper proprietors and staffs had fled to Bordeaux with the government.

  The front page headline read: HUGE BATTLE ON WESTERN FRONT, and carried a report of the Battle of the Aisne, the four days of carnage from which the Tommies had just escaped.

  "Och, mon," Captain George said, "I don't need this sort of news. What else is happening?"

  They found a small cafe and sat at a table, sharing out the pages of the paper and reading aloud to each other.

  An amazing piece of news was the success of German "Unterseeboots." During the month of September, they had surprised and sunk several British warships. Most amazingly, these attacks were all attributed to only two German submarines, as most of Germany's twenty-seven U-boats were of the older type, not oceangoing and only capable of operating in coastal waters.

  In the diplomatic sphere, numerous countries were still debating whether to enter the war and, if so, on which side.

  Turkey was reported to be about to enter the war on the side of Germany and Austria. Italy, formally allied with these powers, was reportedly considering joining the Allies instead to open a Southern Front. Russia was appealing to Britain for assistance on the Eastern Front. Bulgaria was about to enter the war and join Germany in an attack on Serbia.

  In an editorial the Herald's millionaire owner, James Gordon Bennett, himself an American, campaigned for America to join the conflict. He cited the increasing use of German submarines against merchant shipping of all nations which, he declared, would eventually involve the United States whether or not the government wished it.

  In Rumania the Germans had put their chemical skills to military use, infecting the horses of the Rumanian cavalry with the disease of glanders.

  And the war had taken to the air. German airplanes had bombed Paris. British aircraft had raided the Zeppelin sheds at Dusseldorf, Köln, and Friedrickshafen.

  There were also reports that none of the Tommies believed of the brilliantly effective use of new inventions such as aerial photography, wireless telegraphy, and field telephones.

  "I wonder how you disable a wireless telegraph," Cockney Dave laughed.

  "Oh," Captain George laughed back, "I suppose standing on the transmitter instrument would work reasonably well."

  The cafe proprietor kept them well supplied with beer and anis and begged them to stay when they had finished with the paper and got up to leave. Customers were now hard to come by with virtually every man of drinking age at the front. The waitresses added their pleas – they had not seen a real man in weeks.

  They were at last leaving the restaurant when they ran into a group of French poilus in their horizon-blue uniforms, just arrived on leave, too. Cockney Dave had consumed several glasses of anis, and he lurched unsteadily, bumping shoulders with one of the Frenchmen who fell to the ground.

  His comrades immediately set upon the Tommies, and in a moment the street was a mass of milling uniforms. The numbers were about even, but all the Frenchmen were of about the same size as the small Englishmen. And nobody on the French side had the physique of George, Hugh, or Casca. Nor did any of them have Casca's phenomenal technique, and most of the blue uniforms were soon lying on the cobblestones while the rest were fleeing down the street.

  When it was clear that the Tommies had won, the French restaurateur came running from his cafe. "Gentlemen, gentlemen," he implored, "please accept my apologies for the disgraceful behavior of my countrymen. Pray come back to my cafe and refresh yourselves."

  Casca studied the obsequiously sweating Frenchman. He was clearly of military age and fit. It must have cost him a small fortune to stay out of the French army.

  The Tommies reoccupied the cafe, calling for anis, absinthe, pernod, beer, and wine. The street fight had certainly raised their thirst, and the Frenchman beamed as he ran busily about shouting at his waitresses to hurry their service to France's heroic allies. The French girls were happy to do so, and were soon having their cheeks pinched and their butts patted by the women-starved Englishmen.

  The proprietor opened his secret caches of tinned tongue and goose liver. He produced fragrant cheeses and huge sausages of salami. He offered Turkish cigarettes at ridiculously high prices, but the Tommies had pockets full of money and were glad to pay.

  Cockney Dave and Casca cut out the two most attractive women who, it turned out, were the cafe owner's wife and daughter. The greedy oaf was too busy counting the money he was making to notice that the two women had disappeared. He only realized what was happening when he went to his living quarters in search of some hidden cigars that he could surely sell at stupendous prices.

  As he entered his dining room, he was horrified to see his wife's white thighs spread apart on the table with Casca standing between them. He jumped on Casca from behind, and got an elbow in the gut and Casca's heel in his balls for his trouble. He fell howling to the floor, and his cries of pain turned to screams of fury as he saw Cockney Dave'
s buttocks pumping over his daughter's body on the couch.

  Both men were too busy and involved at the moment to do anything more about his unwanted presence. He dragged himself to his feet and over to a sideboard where he opened a drawer and grabbed a large knife.

  This was the moment Casca had been dreading but waiting for, and he reluctantly withdrew from the wife's plump body, leaving her spread-eagled on the table among the silverware and plates laid for lunch. She lay there moaning, only dimly aware of her husband and not really interested in anything other than her own satisfaction, that had seemed only seconds away.

  Casca turned as the man rushed at him, the heavy chef's knife upraised in his right hand. Casca brought up his left arm and circled it, sweeping away the threat. At the same instant his right hand chopped at the fat throat, and the man fell to the floor.

  Casca snatched up one of the large white serviettes from the table and used it to tie the man's hands. He used another to truss his legs and returned to his interrupted task. The frustrated moans of the plump wife quickly turned to cries of pleasure, and the crockery and cutlery jangled as the table shook with her spasms.

  Cockney Dave had similarly satisfied the girl who was now sobbing that she had been ruined. As the mother came down from her peak of satisfaction, she added her wails to those of her daughter.

  Casca took another serviette and crammed it into the screaming woman's mouth. Dave followed his example, and they then tied the women hand and foot and laid them on the floor on top of the head of the family.

  They then returned to the cafe, finished their drinks, paid one of the waitresses, and left quickly. Their comrades had a fair idea of what must have happened and needed no second urging to leave with them.

  They hadn't gone far when they again ran into the poilus who were returning with reinforcements in the shape of armed French military provosts. There was nothing to do but to submit, and they were taken under arrest to a nearby French barracks where Captain George was locked in one cell and the rest of them in another.