Kingdoms Fall - The Laxenburg Message (4 page)

Wilkins and Gresham were of like mind that
progress up the ridge was the better path. They peered over the rim at the
ridgeline ahead, trying to identify the next obstacles and determine the best
route to proceed. Sergeant Hart from Wilkins’ company was crouching nearby,
also peering at the Turkish defenses ahead. The Sergeant, who was well over six
feet and as thin as a rail, scrambled over to the officers. He had to kneel
before them to keep his head out of harm’s way.

“Sirs, it’s not rightly my place to say, but it
looks to me as though the two guns ahead of us are a bit misplaced, as there’s
no crossfire between ‘em at all. We can dodge the right gun by going over to
our left – the ridge there will cover our attack. Then we cut across and can
dodge the left gun by going around to the right.”

           
“Excellent spotting there, Sergeant Hart,” said Wilkins.

           
“Right,” said Gresham. “Captain Wilkins, get the men spread out at the other
end of the gully. Hart and I will go out on our left and flank the first
machine gun. You cover our attack, then take the company around the right to
take out the gun on our left. You’ll want to leave a few men here to hold our
lines open.

           
“Agreed,” said Wilkins.

“Come with me, Hart.”

           
“Aye, Sir.”

           
Gresham and Hart scrambled over the rim of the gully and rushed across to the
left, keeping as best as they could under the cover from a low ridge. The
machine guns opened fire from their embrasures, but couldn’t swivel fast enough
to where Gresham and Hart were scrambling through the rocks and scrub brush to
the left. At the other end of the gully, Wilkins’ men fired their rifles to
keep the attention of the Turkish machine gunners. Sand and rock kicked up at
Gresham’s heels, but before long he and Hart were out of the line of fire.
Suddenly, there was the crack of a rifle shot and dust kicked up in front of
Gresham; his face was sprayed with pebbles and chips of rock. He fell flat
behind a low rock and hugged the ground. Hart practically jumped on top of him.

“Hart, there’s a sniper there on our left.
Didn’t spot him, now, did you?”

“Pardon me, Sir, but, yes, I did catch a
glimpse of that fellow there. I thought we might catch old Abdul napping.”

“What?”

“Every man needs a bit of sleep now and then,
Sir.”

“He’s not asleep now, Hart. Any ideas?”

“Just the one, Sir, just the one, not
altogether conventional, if you don’t mind,” said Hart. He reached into his kit
and produced a small, modified milk tin with a fuse jutting out the top. “A
little homemade item, Sir, might help in a situation like this. Quite a bit of
steel and gunpowder in there, Sir. Have a lighter, do you?”

“Yes, but for God’s sake keep your head down.
How’d you know to make up that jam-tin there, Sergeant?”

“Why, Sir, I’ve been in the British army since
before your ink was dry.”

“How’s your arm, it’s quite a distance.”

“Not bad, no, but I give you the honors, Sir.
If it’s all the same, I’d rather be killed by an officer’s mistake than my
own.”

“You light it, and I’ll toss it up, then.”

Hart lit the fuse on the little tin, and
Gresham lobbed it as close to the sniper as he could reach. The Turkish sniper
mistook Gresham’s upraised arm as a signal to the company to attack and began
firing desperately all along the ridge in their direction, spraying both men
with more pebbles and dust. Fortunately for Gresham and Hart, the fuse on the
homemade grenade was very short, and the little bomb exploded in the air near
enough to the sniper to spew shards of lead down upon him. He wasn’t killed,
but Hart and Gresham took advantage of the diversion to rush up on either side
of the sniper. Hart landed on the man with both knees and thrust his bayonet
through the man’s throat. Twisting the blade, he withdrew the bayonet and the
Turkish man’s blood streamed out into the dust.

Now Gresham and Hart were too far up to the
left of the ridge and nearly in range of the second machine gun. Shots poured
down in their direction. They quickly scrambled to their right when suddenly a
trench opened right before them. It was full of Turkish soldiers. The closest
enemies began screaming at Gresham and Hart in Turkish, but many did not even
seem to have rifles. Gresham felt almost relieved to finally have a target he
could shoot and began firing his bolt-action rifle as fast as he could. He
emptied his magazine before a handful of the enemy who had knives could charge
into him and Sergeant Hart.

In hand-to-hand combat, Hart had the greater
repertoire, but Gresham was an experienced knife fighter. While Hart bayonetted
one Turkish trooper, Gresham drew out his field knife and began to work into
the pack, laying several of the enemy out. His heart beat wildly as his arms
became soaked in blood and clouds of small black flies rushed into the fight to
drink their fill. The Turkish soldiers were compressed in the narrow trench and
could not overpower the two British soldiers. As the dead began to pile, the
remaining Turkish troops fled back up the trench towards the machine gun
emplacement. Gresham and Hart charged up the trench after them. The Turkish
soldiers leapt out at the far end of the trench and ran directly into Wilkins
and the company flanking them on the right. “Fire!” Wilkins shouted, and the
entire company fired at once, like a musket line of the old wars. The Turkish
troops fell in a mass. But Wilkins was now taking fire from another
Turkish-held trench down to the south of his position, and his men could only
fall flat to the ground.

           
“Hart, help me move this gun around.” Gresham and Hart lifted the Turks’ heavy
machine gun and wheeled it around towards the trench to the south. With
Wilkins’ company still prostrate on the ground, Gresham was in a perfect
position to enfilade the enemy. As well-armed Turkish troops gathered below to
charge up at Wilkins’ company, the Lieutenant opened fire straight down the
length of the trench, killing dozens of enemy soldiers. Lieutenant Keeling and
his platoons then swarmed into the lower trench, putting down the rest of the
Turkish troops and waving up to Wilkins that the right flank was secure.

Gresham and Hart next swiveled the heavy gun
around towards the machine gun emplacement up the ridge to their left. Before they
could get the machine gun into position, however, Wilkins gathered his men and
charged into the trench from the right flank. The Turks were packed tightly
into the narrow channel. Wilkins led the charge and, for the first time, fired
his revolver at enemy troops. He could easily see his bullets, as if in slow
motion, tear into the flesh and shatter the bones of the Turkish soldiers
standing immediately before him, and at such close range, their blood
splattered back upon him. The droplets of blood felt indistinguishable from the
sweat that was already streaming down his face. His heart racing, Wilkins
pressed forward, firing again and again until his pistol was empty and his men
had swarmed over the machine gun and killed all the enemies in the trench. Then
Wilkins climbed calmly up onto the firing step and looked for Gresham and Hart
in the trench below and waved his still smoking revolver to them, even as he
struggled to calm himself and swallow the bitter realization that he had become
a killing soldier and no longer a mere King’s Scholar at Eton.

           
“Send down a half dozen men!” Gresham shouted, and Wilkins promptly ordered a
number of privates and a corporal to run down and along the trench to his
Lieutenant’s position.

“I have a new toy here for you fellows,” said
Gresham. “Keep this gun pointed down towards that trench there. If the Turks
make a move to retake the lower trench from Lieutenant Keeling, you’ll have no
trouble with them. There will be more companies coming up behind us throughout
the day, and you are then to move up and rejoin us.”

Gresham and Hart scrambled up to Wilkins’
position. “Well done, Captain,” said Gresham encouragingly, after he saw the
thirty or so dead Turkish soldiers in the trench. This far up on the ridge there
were no more falling shells or shrapnel. The Turkish officers to the south and
east were justifiably afraid to order fire on what they assumed, or at least
hoped, was a position still held by their own men. Gresham took a hard look at
Wilkins and was satisfied to see that the young officer was holding up well
under the new stress of battle, even though the both of them were fairly
covered in blood and had every reason to be exhausted. Wilkins, for his part,
sought to emulate the steely determination and calm with which Gresham led the
men and handled the battle; clearly, Gresham was well accustomed to killing.

Behind them, more British soldiers were
climbing up the ridge, but far fewer than Gresham expected. “Captain, our
company is getting a bit stretched out on this ridge,” he said. “Do you know
how many men are supposed to follow along in this direction?”

“The whole damned Division, Lieutenant. You and
Sergeant Hart take half a dozen men and follow this trench along as far as it
goes. Make sure the dugouts are cleared, but I’ll have no unnecessary killing,
Lieutenant.”

Gresham and Hart took a handful of men and
started down what proved to be a long and jagged trench. Gresham had seen a
number of trenches in his military career, but in this one there was at least
no mud and no dead and decaying bodies stacked against the walls. Instead, the
firing step on the side of the trench had evidently been used for open air
sleeping platforms by the Turkish troops seeking to escape the oven-like
dugouts. The conditions were, in other respects, appalling:  Every scrap
of food and human waste and filth was covered with clouds of flies and maggots
and the only water they found was foul and brown. And this was an area that
hadn’t even seen battle before now.

It was late morning and the sun was beating
down into the trenches and heating them like a kiln. Gresham found only one
Turkish soldier alive. The man was too weak from dysentery to be moved, which
explained why he had been left behind when the rest of the troops in his
company had retreated to the east. Hart and Gresham simply took his rifle away
and gave him the last of their clean water. As they stopped to check one last
dugout, the ridge behind them began erupting in a sudden series of huge
explosions. Wilkins came running up the trench with another small group of the
men to meet them. “Someone is shelling the ridge!”

“Is it the Turks or our destroyers intending to
bomb the enemy?” Gresham asked.

Wilkins turned around and pulled his field
glasses from his kit. He trained them first on the plains to the south and
east, and then on the bay to the west.

“The Turks are still shelling the ships in the
bay, it seems. These incoming shells must be our own. Why in the name of God
are they shelling the very ridge we have just taken?” It was clear, in any
event, that the line of shells was advancing up the ridge in the direction of
Wilkins’ company and so the need to move was paramount. Gresham, Hart, Wilkins
and the three dozen remaining members of the company scrambled out of the
trench and quick marched east along a path on top of the ridge. They soon
encountered and easily captured two lightly guarded artillery guns and killed
several dozen more Turkish soldiers. Many more Turkish soldiers could be seen
pulling back to the east.

It was mid-afternoon when the company reached
an abandoned Turkish command dugout overlooking the Gulf of Saros. A dry hot
breeze was blowing over the ridge from the south and the sun was dazzlingly
hot. Gresham, using Wilkins’ field glasses, could see companies of Turkish
soldiers amassing several miles to the east; it was unclear whether they were
preparing a counter-attack. The ridge itself was eerily quiet as Wilkins
ordered the men to stop for a drink from their canteens and to rest briefly out
of the hot sun.

Then suddenly the front lines erupted and the
enemy came back upon them from the south.

“Lord help us! The Turks are comin’ on,
hundreds of ‘em!” howled a bull-like Private, pointing at the trenches below
where Keeling and his men were guarding Wilkins’ flank. Wilkins and his company
leapt to their feet as Gresham climbed onto the top of the dugout with the
field glasses. He could see many hundreds, perhaps more than a thousand Turkish
soldiers rushing from the wide plains to the south back up into the very
trenches on the ridge which Wilkins’ company had just left behind. His company
was parting like the Red Sea, with most of the troops desperately running down
the ridge into the gullies below and Lieutenant Keeling and his men withdrawing
quickly down the ridge towards the bay. The few troops attempting to run east
along the ridgeline toward Wilkins were being shot by Turkish soldiers.

“My God!” shouted Wilkins. “Where is the rest
of the Division? We just let the bloody Turks take back the ridge!”

“Not us,” said Gresham with disgust. “But
someone did.” Gresham leapt down into the trench and examined his empty
canteen. The rest of the company stood in front of the dugout staring with
horror as they were cut off from the rest of their army.

“How could this happen!” Wilkins shouted.

“Someone halted the Division’s advance up onto
the ridge, otherwise the positions behind us would be filled with British
troops defending the high ground,” said Gresham.