THE CINDER PATH (32 page)

companies got mixed up.

It was as they came under a hail of fire from the

further German lines that he came across John

Bradshaw. In the illumination of a Very light he

saw him lying against the side of a trench, his fingers gripping the wooden support that led to a

dug-out. He turned him round and saw in the flashes

that he was still alive; one arm was hugging his chest and his sleeve was already stained. He grabbed up the pistol

that was lying by his side and glanced swiftly around.

There were bodies strewn here and there and a few men were still milling about along at the far end of the trench where it turned a corner. As a shell burst overhead he

ducked and covered the lieutenant; then shouting at

him; "It's all right! It's

all right!" he put his hands underneath his oxters and pulled him into the shelter of the dug-out. Then for the second time in a matter of minutes he yelled,

"I'll be back! I'll be back, John."

The men at the end of the trench were pinned down now by a barrage of bursting shells.

There was a sudden explosion at the opposite end

of the trench and timbers and clay were thrown high in the air.

"We're cornered, sir," a voice was bawling

in his ear, and he nodded at the crouching speaker and, pointing backwards, he gesticulated wildly; then

waved his arm in a "Come on!" movement and the huddle of men followed him, stumbling over the bodies

strewn on the duck-boards.

Within a few minutes the dug-out was full

with fifteen privates, a corporal, a sergeant,

and Lieutenant Bradshaw.

It had been an officers' dug-out, as the light

of a torch showed, and Charlie saw that it was well

equipped, better far than theirs had been, in fact

it appeared luxurious. What caught his eye

immediately were three towels hanging on a bench near an enamelled bowl filled with water. Gathering up the

towels, he

went to John Bradshaw and said quickly, "Let's

see the trouble, John?" But he had to force his arm away from his ribs before he could open his jacket. When he ripped down the blood-sodden shirt it was

to disclose a bullet wound at the top of his chest.

"I know what to do, sir, I've done first aid."

The voice was to his side and Charlie said, "Good."

"We'll tear the towels, sir."

With the help of other hands the towels were quickly torn into strips, and when the rough bandaging was done, they carried the lieutenant to the bed in the corner of the

dugout and laid him down, and for the first time John

Bradshaw spoke. "Thanks, Charlie," he said.

"It won't be long before we get you back."

They looked at each other steadily for a moment;

then John Bradshaw merely nodded.

The barrage had lessened somewhat but was still strong, and Charlie issued orders to the sergeant, who

relayed them to the corporal to post men at intervals

along the trench, and for others to remove the bodies to the far end; but not to go beyond the bend. The trench was long and although there was no sound of fighting activity coming from further along it, it was not known who could be lurking there. They would investigate later. Then he went out,

the sergeant going with him.

Cautiously now he raised his head above the

parapet. The early morning light showed a sea of

barbed wire. What was he to do? He couldn't think of

advancing with this handful on his own; but if they stayed here they'd likely all be blown to smithereens.

He turned now and went down the trench and looked

over the other parapet in the direction where he

imagined lay their own lines, but as far as he could

see there was merely barren land pitted with craters,

except where two small hills lay to the right. ...

Or were they hills? That was the direction from where the bombardment had been coming, likely they were

camouflaged fortifications. He hadn't any idea

at the moment where he was. He couldn't remember

seeing those two mounds on the map.

What he did see now were two

figures slowly emerging from a crater. From this distance he couldn't make out whether they were Germans or his

own fellows. He called quietly, "Sergeant,

take a look."

The sergeant raised his head slowly upwards,

then said, "Blokes crawling this way,

sir."

"Yes; but who are they?"

"Bareheaded, no helmets on."

"I think there's one of them injured, one's pulling the other. . . . Yes, and they're ours. Come on."

Without hesitation they both jumped the parapet and,

bent double, made for the crawling men. They had just

reached them when the barrage of fire was intensified, and it was definitely coming now from the direction of the mounds.

Grabbing one man by the collar, Charlie pulled

him unceremoniously forward, and they had almost reached the trench when a shell burst just behind them and the force of the explosion lifted them all and threw them in a bunch

back into the trench.

When they had sorted themselves out, they lay panting

for a moment and took stock of each other. One of the men Charlie recognized straightaway, it was the man

he had stumbled over, one of his own men; and now the

man actually laughed at him as he

spluttered almost hysterically, "You said you'd come back an' get me, an' you did."

The other soldier was covered with wet

slush from head to foot, and as he watched the man

take his hand round his face, then through his mud-matted hair, his heart actually missed a beat.

No, no! not here; not under these circumstances; not

Slater.

But it was Slater, and Slater had recognized

him.

As another shell burst near the parapet Charlie

yelled at his sergeant, "Get them into the dug-out."

No sign of recognition had passed between them but

immediately he entered the dug-out he felt an almost

desperate urge to speak to Slater, in order

to make their stations clear once and for all, yet he

had to force the question through his lips.

"What battalion?" he asked. His voice was

cool, the words clipped.

Slater stared at him, and his hesitation in answering

was put down by those present to shock; fellows did

act like that at times, didn't jump to it, they got

past it.

"12th . . . sir."

The sergeant looked sharply at the

mudcovered figure, the fellow was acting queer; the

way he had said "sir"; shellshock likely.

Charlie stared into Slater's face for a

moment before turning away; then he looked around the

dug-out, saying, "Seemingly they didn't go in for

tea, but there's a few bottles of wine there. Open

them, Sergeant."

"Yes, sir."

"And those tins of beef; you'd better make a

meal of it for I think we might be here a little while

longer."

He now went to the corner of the dug-out where John

Bradshaw lay, and the lieutenant, looking up at

him, said, "They didn't take all that sector

then?"

Charlie shook his head. "No."

"They will."

"Yes, yes, they will. Don't worry."

"The shelling, where's it coming from?"

"One of the hills on our flank, it's still very much alive."

"What do you aim to do?" Suddenly Bradshaw

bit on his lip and his right arm went across his chest and covered the one that was strapped to his body with the

towels.

"Look," Charlie bent over him; "don't

worry. If our lot don't send reinforcements

over we can hold out till dark. Just lie still." He nodded down into the pain-twisted face, then went

outside again.

The sergeant was standing along near

where the last man was posted and where the dead lay

conspicuously piled on both sides of the parapet,

and he turned to Charlie, saying below his breath as he pointed to the bend in the trench, "There's movement along there, sir, I went a little way round and I'm

sure I spotted a head peering out of a dug-out."

Charlie remained still for a moment; then drawing

John Bradshaw's pistol from his holster and looking

first at the sergeant, then at the sentry, he said,

"Come on," and slowly the three went forward. First pausing before a dug-out, their guns at the ready, they would then jump almost as one man into it. Each was well constructed but not so comfortable, Charlie noticed, as the one they had claimed as their temporary headquarters.

They had almost reached the last dug-out before the trench made yet another sharp bend when Charlie held up

his hand and they stood perfectly still.

The minutes ticked away, almost five of them

before, signalling to the sergeant to follow him,

they both sprang forward and through the opening.

His finger was wavering on the trigger. Instinctively

he was about the pull it when "Kamarad! Kamarad!"

The word emerged

from three throats at once; two of the men were lying

on the floor, the third was leaning on his elbow, one

arm thrust high above his head; his trouser knee was

soaked red; the second man on the floor hadn't

raised his hands because they were holding the side of his head; the first man now stood up, his hands well above

his head.

"Come on!" Charlie signalled to the standing man to move forward, then called to the private: "Stay with them! We'll send someone forward for them." He went out and followed the sergeant who was now thrusting the German along the trench at the point of his

bayonet.

In the passage along the trench Charlie

detailed two men to go and bring the wounded Germans

down. Back in their own dug-out the man who was acting

as orderly exclaimed on sight of the prisoner,

"Blimey! a live one."

Slater, sitting hunched up in the corner of the

dug-out, said nothing, and as Charlie's eyes swept

over him, as if unseeing, he noticed, with

surprise, for the first time that his sleeve now bore no stripes. Slater had been deprived of the power

to bully and blast. Why?

After a moment he said in an aside to his

sergeant andwitha backward lift of his head

in the direction of Slater, "Put him on guard."

"I... I think he's in shock, sir,

shellshock, he won't open his mouth."

He wanted to say, "Yes, he's in shock all

right, but it isn't shellshock, it's hate that's tying

his tongue."

And as the thought came to him, he swung round to stare into the eyes of Slater. It was as if their steel-hard

gaze had willed him to turn, and he experienced a

fear that all the guns and the slaughter hadn't so far

evoked in him.

"You'd better watch out." It was as if someone had spoken aloud, for he answered the voice, saying,

"Yes, by God, yes, I'd better watch out."

It was around midday when he was almost about to give the order to make it back to their own lines that the

bombardment from the mounds started in earnest and two men on sentry duty at the farthest end of the trench were

killed outright. To add further to the confusion, their own batteries took up the challenge.

He didn't know how far their line had advanced,

or if they had advanced at all, but he gauged that

as long as there was the crossfire there would be no

surprise attack

from the German flank to retake this particular section of the line, and so he ordered the remaining men into the dug-out, only almost immediately to feel he had made a

mistake and they would all be buried alive, for a

shell bursting near up above cracked the timbers in

the roof and brought the clay spattering amongst them.

The German prisoners showed little emotion, they

sat huddled together staring before them; even the one who wasn't wounded looked dazed.

As the afternoon wore on, the shelling became

intermittent from both sides, and then as dusk was about to set in there fell over the whole land a silence. It

was a weird silence. Back home Charlie would have

thought of it as the silence of evening falling into night; here, he knew, it was the calm before the storm.

John Bradshaw who was doubtless in great pain and

who looked pretty sick muttered, "What are you

thinking of doing?" and Charlie replied, "Once it's dark, make a break for our lines again, go back the

way we came. I've been looking at the map.

We'll have to move north-west. Battle

Wood I think lies to the north, and to tell you the

truth I

don't know if we've come through two sets of lines

or not."

"I shouldn't think so; our artillery seems too

near for that."

"I hope you're right."

"I... I know they are dead beat but I think

you'd be wise to put some of them on guard before it

gets too dark, you don't know but what we may be

surprised."

"Yes, I'll do that."

He turned away now and issued orders to the

sergeant to place his men again at intervals along the

trench leaving only three men behind. Then beckoning

these three men to the opening of the dug-out he said in an undertone, "You know what to do when I give the

signal. Get him on to the stretcher. Don't

take any notice of his protests, just get him on

to it. Then put the able-bodied prisoner at the

front and one of you take the back. When you go out of

here turn left." He pointed. "The three wounded men"-he jerked his head backwards-"well, two of you get in between them, you know the drill, and follow the stretcher. We'll be around you. The main thing