Eleven Eleven (13 page)

They stared at each other for a few seconds, frozen in time – Axel with his rifle raised and his bayonet a few inches away from Eddie’s face. Eddie, his arm out, was holding a revolver pointing straight at Axel.

Axel became aware again of his breathing and his heart beating painfully hard in his chest. But strangest of all was how calm he felt. Why had the American not shot him when he had charged towards him? What were they going to do next?

The pilot, it seemed, had the advantage, but Axel noticed how the revolver was shaking in his hand. Its weight seemed too much for him and Axel realised he must be badly wounded. Should he wait to see what happened next, or should he press home his attack? He searched his opponent’s face for a sign. His hand might be shaking, but his eyes seemed clear and well focused. Then he noticed his face. He looked strangely familiar. The man had the sort of ruddy colouring often seen in the region he came from. And he wasn’t really a man – he was only a year or two older than Axel.

‘Just put the rifle down and catch your breath,’ said the pilot, speaking German with a Berlin accent.

‘You’re German,’ blurted out Axel. ‘Why are you fighting for them?’

‘Don’t be a
Dummkopf
?,?’ said the pilot. ‘Put down your rifle or I’m going to have to kill you.
I
don’t want to die on the last day of the war, and I don’t want
you
to have to either.’

Axel was reeling. This airman spoke German like a native. And, he knew, he could easily have shot him just now. He began to shake a little himself. His anger was dissolving and, much to his embarrassment, he realised he was having to fight back tears.

‘What’s your name, son?’ said Eddie. He had realised this boy was his only chance out of this pool of mud. He needed to win him over quickly, before he sank further.

‘Axel,’ said the boy warily. ‘Why are you talking to me like this? Are you a traitor? Have you changed sides?’

Eddie laughed. ‘Look, my parents moved over to the United States forty years ago. I was born there. We speak German at home, and English everywhere else. I’m as American as those soldiers who were attacking you just now.’

Axel noticed the airman had a woman’s scarf poking out from the top of his flying jacket. Then another thing he’d just heard hit him like a flash of lightning. He blinked in confusion. ‘What did you say . . . the last day of the war?’ he blurted.

Eddie laughed again – this time in disbelief. ‘What! They haven’t told you?’

Axel felt exasperated. ‘Well, they didn’t tell your soldiers attacking just now, did they! They didn’t tell your artillery men . . .’ He could feel his anger boiling up and raised his rifle. ‘And if you knew the war was ending today, what the hell were you doing coming over here in your flying machine and killing all my comrades?’

Eddie’s eyes flashed with anger too. He levelled his revolver at Axel’s head again. ‘Stay where you are and calm yourself.’

Axel froze.

‘Our top brass . . .’ said Eddie, then he faltered. All of a sudden he was having to find the strength to talk. ‘Got reputations to make. Gonna keep us fighting right to the eleventh hour . . . Then it’s all over,
Kamerad
. . . You stay here with me and wait.’ He glanced very rapidly at his watch and his eyes returned to Axel. ‘Not long . . . then we can both go home to our mothers.’

Eddie felt guilty, making this speech. After all, he too had set out at the break of day to add a final notch to his belt. All at once he realised he was no better than any of the rest of the glory hunters – hoping to impress the other pilots by taking the life of another man.

‘I came out to help our boys,’ he lied to Axel and to himself. ‘If our boys are attacking, then it’s my job to help them.’

Axel felt confused. This pilot he had been so intent on killing was only doing his duty – like they all were. And the man could have killed him easily enough. Axel extended an arm, reaching further down to make contact. But the pilot warned him away. ‘Don’t come any closer. I’m stuck in the mud here. You need to get something, a rope and plank, a belt, to pull me out.’

Eddie wondered whether he had told this boy too much. He was at his mercy. What would he do if the boy refused to help? Threaten to shoot him?

Axel decided what to do in an instant. Otto had told him stories about the trenches. How men had fought like devils but shared cigarettes or water bottles with the enemy after the fighting. The thing that haunted him most, said his brother, was the Tommy he had killed after he had surrendered. But some other enemy soldiers, just up the line, were still fighting. Grenades were coming over. ‘Kill him,’ snapped Otto’s lieutenant, and Otto just lunged in with his bayonet. ‘He looked so surprised, and then he screamed and called for his mother. I can still hear him now. If you have to fight, be careful what you do. You’ll have to live with it for the rest of your life.’

So Axel Meyer undid the belt around his trousers and tossed it towards Eddie Hertz. He noticed Eddie’s eyes went out of focus, and there was sweat on his brow, even though he was up to his thighs in freezing mud . . . Axel knew instinctively he needed first aid. But he couldn’t risk taking him back to his own lines. His own comrades would kill him.

‘Hey, Axel, keep your mind on the job,’ the pilot was telling him.

Axel began to pull hard on the belt, but Eddie kept losing his grip. He was stuck pretty thoroughly here. ‘Wrap it round your hand,’ said Axel. ‘I’ll lean forward some more.’

Eddie did, and Axel pulled with all his strength. But instead of drawing Eddie out, he lurched forward himself and his feet sank deep into the muddy water. In a panic he tried to lift a leg. He was stuck too.

‘
Jesus
,’ he said in despair. He waited a moment, then tried to lift his left leg again. It was stuck in the mud like it was held there by a giant magnet. ‘Hold steady, Axel,’ said the pilot. ‘We wait. Wait until the firing stops, wait until we hear some cheering, and some church bells, then we start shouting our heads off.’

For a few moments neither said anything. Axel was wondering what sort of hellish mess he had got himself into. Then shells began to fall again, close to their own crater. The first few were far enough away to just hear, but then a brace began to fall near enough for them to hear the scream as they came in. Soil fell around them, and the air was snatched from their lungs. Their ears began to whistle with the noise, then something screamed in right close to them. ‘Dear God,’ said Eddie in English. There was a great thump right next to them, and earth splattered up. Axel looked around. Why weren’t they dead? A small crater had appeared in front of them, not two metres away. They could see the hole the shell had made as it plunged into the damp earth.

They both stared at it, expecting to be blown to pieces at any second. Axel was frozen in terrified expectation. But as nothing happened, the dread he felt gradually began to ebb from his limbs. Instead, he started to shake all over.

‘It must be a dud,’ he said. Otto had told him about shells that landed close by but didn’t explode.

‘Either that or a delayed fuse,’ said Eddie. ‘Let’s hope it’s not ticking.’ He paused and tried to sound more cheerful. ‘No. It’s a message from God. He wants us to live. Sit tight, Axel. We’re going to see the end of this war. You got a girl back home? Well, I’ve got one here, and I’m not planning on dying on her.’

Chapter 16

10.30 a.m.

Will ran until his lungs were bursting, expecting a shot in the head at any second. Did you hear it before it hit you? Did you feel it? Or would you never know? Men he had seen shot through the head sometimes had a look of dull surprise etched on their dead faces. Once, he had been working on a burial detail with the new padre, Reverend Oliver. There was a dead fellow with a surprised look on his face. Oliver had said it was because, at the moment of his death, he had seen an old friend who had come to take him off to heaven. Will tried to hide his annoyance. He was too old for stories like that.

Will could run no further and he collapsed on to a thick patch of vegetation, gulping down great lungfuls of air. His mouth seemed very damp, and when he wiped it he was surprised to find his hand was covered in blood. Then he remembered that when his helmet had been shot from his head it had been knocked down over his face. The rim must have hit his nose, which had bled quite profusely. Inspecting it now, he didn’t know whether it was broken or just badly bruised. It hurt like hell when he touched it.

His hearing was still not right either. It was as if someone was closing his ears with their hands, then taking them away again. He lay there, occasionally banging the side of his head to try to stop the whistling and those strange dense blanks when he could hear nothing at all.

He surrendered to the silence and lay on his back, staring up through the treetops to the cloud-covered sky. Will didn’t believe any of that nonsense about heaven. How God could put these good-hearted men through such a living hell was beyond his understanding. The new padre said God moved in mysterious ways. Will didn’t like the Reverend Oliver. He looked at you like the village vicar used to look at the poorer boys when they put their grubby fingers in the biscuit tray at the school fête. Will preferred the padre they had had before. But, oddly, he was the reason Will no longer believed in God.

The Reverend Charles Clare was a toff. He’d been to Oxford University. But he would come right down to the firing line to mingle with the men, helping the slower ones with their letters. His wife made beautiful fruitcake, and when a package came over, he’d share it with them all. And he’d put a word in for old Pierce, the one who had been shaking so bad he couldn’t hold his rifle. The one the CO wanted to shoot for cowardice.

One morning the reverend announced his wife had just had twins. They were his first kids. One of the blokes knitted a couple of pairs of socks for the babies and went off to find him. Will had been surprised to discover quite a few of the men knitted on the front line. The man came back white as a sheet, still holding on to those little blue socks. ‘He’s in the latrine,’ he said. ‘Trousers round his ankles, top of his head missing. Stray bit of shell burst must have had him.’ Then he turned round and threw up. None of the men could understand how God could do that to one of his own.

After that, Will was convinced he lived in a rudderless world and only blind luck was going to save him. That didn’t stop him praying though – when they were under heavy fire or the shells were falling.

Now, as he lay on the edge of the forest, Will’s breathing slowly returned to normal. His heart stopped thumping in his chest and he began to feel a creeping sense of fear – not for the sniper, wherever he was. He had missed him for now. But Will had run away. He examined his conscience. Had they all run, or was it just him? In his mind’s eye, he replayed the scene. The shot that set him off had glanced off his helmet, and they had all run off, at least that’s what he remembered. But where were the others now? He daren’t call out for fear of drawing the attention of the sniper. He was even reluctant to stand up and look around in case he was spotted. What was he going to do? If he stayed there, alone in his sheltered hiding place, was he deserting? Was he showing cowardice in the face of the enemy? You could be shot for that. What should he do?

They had shot a boy just like him in early September. Jim said they had done it to encourage the others. Damn right it had. It had certainly worked on Will.

Peering through the foliage, Will realised he was close to the very edge of the forest. A short distance away he could see the trees abruptly end and could just make out a wide, flat field ahead.

The outside world was intruding. In the distance he could hear firing and shell bursts. Will lay there for a few more minutes, trying to make up his mind what to do. Eventually, he decided he had to move on. He began to crawl forward to the edge of the forest and peered anxiously out.

Ahead lay flat ground, obviously the scene of a recent battle. There were fresh craters and the smell of explosives and wet earth still hung in the air, along with acrid smoke from the blazing fuselage of a plane. He wondered if that was the one he had seen flying low over the forest earlier that morning. For now he could not see any other soldiers, but he was beginning to feel an overwhelming urge to get out of the forest. The landscape ahead of him was unfamiliar. There was nothing he remembered from entering the forest in the early-morning light. Perhaps this was on the other side? He had completely lost any sense of direction.

He crawled away from the shadow of the trees and into the churned-up ground before him. It was a laborious process, crawling forward like that, but Will didn’t want to stand up. A lone soldier in a field was just asking to be picked off by an enemy soldier – or even a careless one from his own side. It was a pity he no longer had his helmet. That would have made it obvious who he was.

Close to the burning plane he could see a deep crater. Beyond that was a small village. There was a church tower, a manor house and a few buildings. Will decided he would head for that. See what he might find.

It took him ten minutes to reach the crater. He peered cautiously over the lip, then froze in horror. There were two figures down at the bottom, observing him with fearful expressions on their faces. Then an awful stench hit him. Something else was in there – a dead man at the other side of the crater.