‘Gallagher ordered he serve three,’ Rivers barks.
‘And we shall report that he did just that.’ I look at the others. ‘Right, lads?’ Percy and Robert nod. ‘And if you dare shoot a soldier in the back, Rivers, I’ll see to it that it’syoufacing a firing squad.’
We leave the guard at his precious crucifixion post, shouting threats and blue murder after us, and start together along the road. Our column of troops has vanished long ago and now only the odd elderly villager or half-drunk Tommy on a rest day wanders past. To our right, forests and valleys, verdant and unspoiled. To our left, a shattered view of lonely walls and blasted trees with a gash in the grey soil where a communication trench runs out to the Front line. Then the lifeless waste of No Man’s Land and beyond that, a glimpse of an eerie mirror image: the German-occupied towns of the Somme, made just as desolate by our own guns.
But it hadn’t started like this. In 1914, the ravaging Hun had stormed almost unchallenged through the places where we now walk. It wasn’t until they were met by French resistance at the Marne that the invaders were pushed back and a Front line established which, since that day, has hardly moved an inch. A chain of defensive misery woven through the towns and villages of Gommecourt, Serre, Beaumont Hamel, Auchonvillers, Fricourt, Mametz. I shake my head. No one had heard of these places when they existed, now that they hardly do, everyone has.
We’ve been going for a couple of hours, Danny’s cramps easing a little with each passing mile, when a voice calls out to us.
‘You boys up there! Better get yourselves out of sight, unless you want your heads blown off.’
In the next moment, I hear the crack and zing of bullets flying past my face. Before I can shout the order to take cover, I feel a hand tug at my puttees, strong fingers closing around my ankle and pulling me down the high bank upon which the road sits. The others scrabble behind me and we are all safely hunkered down when two more shots fizz overhead. Our rescuers, a pair of grubby-looking soldiers with a coil of barbed wire at their feet, treat us to a grim smile.
‘Not from round these parts, eh?’ one says, thumbing back his cap. ‘Private George Fipps, nice to meet ya. This handsome fella to my right is Benny Stern.’ Benny’s smile is friendly but largely toothless. ‘We were just lugging this here gooseberry back to our trench when we had to take cover.’ He inclines his head to the entanglement of barbed wire sitting on the ground, nicknamed for the prickly gooseberry bush. ‘Locals call this here stretch of road “Pot-shot Alley”,’ George continues, ‘all on account of old Kurt. Best shot in the Somme, old Kurty. The rule is, never go alone on the road in broad daylight when he’s on duty, or you’ll soon be carrying your brains back home in your battle bowler.’
‘A Jerry sniper?’ Percy boggles. ‘Bloody hell, he must be good if he can hit a bloke all the way out here. Aren’t our trenches a bit more convenient for him?’
‘Oh, those boys know to keep their melons down when Kurty’s on the prowl,’ George says, wiping his nose with one of the filthiest handkerchiefs I’ve ever seen. ‘Anyway, I think he doesn’t consider them much of a challenge. The road’s elevated, ya see, and just about within range of his nice little shooter. Only last month, he bagged poor old Peachie, ain’t that right, Benny?’
Benny mutters ‘Ay-uh,’ and displays his gums once again.
‘There was our good friend Peach, whistling along the road, not a care in the world, and thenBAM!Straight through the temple. Never knew what hit him. We still get together outside Peach’s dugout and whistle “Boiled Beef and Carrots” in his honour, just so that Kurty might hear us and know that his memory lives on.’
Danny, Percy and Robert look a little disgusted at George’s casual humour; I have to remind myself that they are still new to this war. Dealing flippantly with death, even that of a close comrade, is one of the ways you survive. I have seen men wave cheery good mornings to their dead friends, hanging on bits of barbed wire out in No Man’s Land.How’s the weather treating you, Stan? What’s the news from up top?It’s a way to distance yourself from the horror and grief that might otherwise destroy you. Still, my heart aches to think that, very soon, Danny and the others might themselves find some relief in such dark humour.
Robert asks, ‘So why do you call him Kurt?’
‘Gotta call him something,’ George shrugs.
As if the sniper has heard his nickname mentioned, another crack and whizz sounds above our heads.
‘Well, I don’t believe he’s the best shot in the Somme,’ Percy mutters.
‘Oh no?’ George says, taking out a cigarette paper from his tunic pocket and stuffing it with odds and ends of tobacco. ‘You got another candidate?’
‘Just so happens I have. And he’s right here.’ Percy nudges Danny with his elbow. ‘I bet our boy could give your Jerry sniper a run for his money. In fact, I bet he could polish off old Kurt the same way Kurt polished off your poor mate Peachie. What do you say, Danny?’ He glances up at the darkening sky, now vaguely dusted with stars. ‘Don’t you reckon it’s a lovely night for killing Germans?’
16
George and Benny have found a divot in the bank, a cleft in the raised road that is shadowed by a nearby tree. It gives a clear view across the shell-dimpled wastes of No Man’s Land, all the way to the German Front. Nothing to interrupt the sighting of the kill shot, except the faint outline of the British trenches and a few snarls of barbed wire glinting in the fading light. Danny settles himself into the earthy nook, his rifle snug in the crook of his shoulder. He places his eye to the sight.
‘What if someone pops their head out ofourtrench at the same moment I fire?’ he asks in an uncertain voice. ‘I could accidentally kill one of our boys.’
George gives his arm a reassuring pat. ‘Not likely, old sport. As I said, our lot know to stay well down when Kurty is on duty. Just wait for the bastard to poke that big bald Bavarian bonce out of his sniper post and then let him have it.’
I sit beside Danny, my back to the earthen wall of the bank. In the gathering dark, he crouches on one knee, breathing slowly, like a hunter waiting for his prey to slide into view. Except I can see the tension in his jaw, the sweat on his brow, the way his forefinger trembles in the trigger guard. This will be his first kill. It’s what he has trained for. Why he is here. I wonder what’s going through his head in this moment: memories of showing off to the punters on his fairground shooting gallery? Or maybe he’s thinking of those easy victories in the training camps back home where paper Germans pinned to target boards don’t scream or bleed. To kill a living, breathing man, even one who has just tried to kill you, is much harder.
‘Kamerad.’
Danny takes his eye from the rifle sight and looks at me. ‘Sorry sir, did you say something?’
I blink. My hands are shaking. For a second it wasn’t Daniel McCormick crouched there beside me but a blue-eyed German boy, a blank expression on his face, a final word forming on his lips:Kamerad.
Another single gunshot echoes across the night.
‘You shouldn’t be doing this,’ I whisper to Danny. Then, to the others: ‘He shouldn’t be doing this. He’s been tied to a post for three bloody hours. He’s tired, hungry, in pain, off his game. Look at him, his arms are trembling just trying to hold up the bloody rifle. He needs to recover properly before he—’
‘No one’s forcing him to shoot old Kurt,’ George snorts. ‘But I did think that was what we were here for. Kill as many of the murdering buggers as we can. Or did I get that wrong, Lieutenant?’
