Pat Kelleher - Black Hand Gang

A gentle wind began to worry the edges of the gas cloud. The fog thinned and visibility gradually improved. They saw dazed soldiers picking themselves up off the ground. If that had been a mine and it was British, then they should be pressing home their advantage and taking the Hun trenches while the enemy were still dazed.

“Where’s the rest of us?” Atkins asked, looking around.

“Over by that shell hole. Half Pint’s trying to calm Ginger down. Lucky, Mercy and Gazette are still out there somewhere. Ketch? Who cares? Sergeant’s probably taking the Jerry trenches by himself,” said Porgy.

The battle fog was mostly gone, slinking shamefully along the surface of the mud, herded by playful draughts.

“Hoods off!” came a distant shout.

Thankfully, men began removing their steel helmets and pulling off their gas hoods.

“Uh, chaps?” said Pot Shot, staring off into the distance.

“Come on, give a man a hand here,” said Atkins putting out an arm. Porgy and Jessop took it and pulled him to his feet.

“Chaps?” said Pot Shot again, more urgently.

Atkins wiped his muddy hands on his thighs. He felt a tap on his shoulder. Porgy was looking past him. “What?” he said in irritation as he rolled up his gas helmet and took a lungful of air. The acrid tang of cordite hit the back of his throat and the slight hint of chlorine hung in the air. He coughed and spat.

Porgy jerked his chin.

He turned and followed their gaze “Blood and sand!” The shell-ravaged vista of No Man’s Land was as familiar as it ever was. Atkins turned round. He could see their trenches and the barbed wire. For around a quarter of a mile in every direction there was the pummelled and churned ground of the Somme. But beyond…

It was as if some pocket of Hades had been deposited in the vale of Elysium. Beyond the muddy battlefield of No Man’s Land, lush green vegetation sprang up, a green so deep and bright after untold weeks of drab khaki and grey, chalky mud that it almost hurt the eyes to look upon it. Great curling fronds, taller than a man, waved in the breeze. Where there should have been only blasted hell-torn rolling farmland, now, on either side of them, deep green thickly wooded hills rose up as if cradling them, their peaks marked by glittering becks and scumbles of scree. Atkins was reminded of the hills and mountains of his Pennine home and felt a pang of homesickness. The air around them was no longer chill and damp, but warm and moist. In the distance, along the valley floor, was a forest of sorts and, above them all, arced an achingly blue summer sky.

But of Harcourt Wood and its splintered, shredded trees, there was no sign.

Men, stunned by the same sight, were taking off their gas hoods and shucking off their backpacks and webbing to stand dumbstruck. Some fell to their knees weeping openly with relief. In the distance, the sounds of a hymn, Nearer My God to Thee, rose up from the trenches. Soldiers slowly, cautiously clambered over the parapets, laying down their weapons to stand in the sunlight.

“Lay down your arms, brothers, for we are at peace in the fields of the Lord!”

Groups knelt in prayer amidst the mud, their hands clasped together, heads bowed. Others just sat, exhausted from the constant tension of the front lines or wandered dazed amid the trammelled corpse-ridden fields. Warmed by the sun, steam began to drift gently up, rising like the ghosts of the slain from the desolate earth.

“It’s paradise!” said Ginger, his steel helmet held loosely in his hand, a beatific smile adorning his face. He wasn’t shaking or jerking, he wasn’t stuttering. It seemed as if a load had been lifted from him. Atkins had never known Ginger without his shell-shock.

“Paradise? You mean — ”

“We’re dead. Yes. Look. The guns have stopped. This isn’t the Somme. This isn’t France. It’s heaven,” Ginger sighed. “It’s heaven…”

“Valhalla,” said Pot Shot, nodding in agreement.

“You what?” said Jessop.

“Valhalla. Norse heaven of Viking warriors.”

“Well, that’s us, though, ain’t it, warriors? That’s us,” said Lucky.

“Blimey you’re a regular fount of knowledge, Pot Shot. I’m surprised you can get your head inside that battle bowler of yours,” Gutsy said.

Atkins felt the great weariness that he had been holding at bay descend on him. It was as if the weight of his mortality was slowly crushing him, as if the mere thought of an end had robbed him of the tenacious will to cling on at all costs. Was this it then? If it was over, if it really was over, if he really could just stop and give in—

“There’s just one thing bothers me,” said Half Pint, scratching his head after a few seconds thought.

“Oh aye, what’s that then?” said Jessop. “You found a problem with heaven, have you?”

“Well, there’s no way they’d be lettin’ Porgy through the pearly gates for a start.”

Me, neither , thought Atkins.

It was all very well the chaplains preaching for victory and devoutly citing that the murder of a Hun was a good thing, but they were hollow words if your conscience was pricked by other matters.

Porgy inclined his head, pursing his lips as he nodded. “Man’s got a point,” he said.

“I’ll say,” said Gutsy, “All those saintly, virtuous young ladies and Porgy? Might be his idea of heaven, but it’d be their idea of hell.”

“Don’t blaspheme,” said Ginger. “Look at it. How can it be anything else? Where did you ever see such beauty on earth?”

“Where’s the Padre? He’d know,” said Lucky.

“Well, if this is heaven he ain’t going to be too happy about it,” said Half Pint.

“Why?”

“He’ll be out of a job, won’t he?”

SEEING THAT THE gas was now blowing away, Jeffries eagerly pulled the stifling hood from his head as he stood ready to receive his god with expectations of the glory and power due to him. So he was perplexed at his deity’s absence and the idyllic sights surrounding them confused him. But beyond that that there was a growing anger. What had gone wrong? He had said the words perfectly , hadn’t he? Yes, he must have. He was sure he had. He ran through his preparations in his head. He had been painstaking in their groundwork. It had taken months to put this plan together based on years of meticulous research. There was only one conclusion he could come to; he’d been cheated. At the moment of his greatest triumph, somehow he’d been cheated. He shook his head slowly, uncomprehensive as anger burned deeply within him until he was consumed in a wave of rage and vitriol.

“No!” he roared, throwing his helmet to the ground. “No!”

SERGEANT HOBSON STORMED over to 1 Section. “You lot! Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Nothing, Sar’nt. We’re dead,” called Porgy.

“You’re not bloody well dead until I tell you you’re dead!” snapped Hobson. “Now pick your kit up and follow me.”

Atkins smirked at Porgy, who shrugged. “Well, it’s something to do until Saint Peter shows up and demobs us,” he said.

“Don’t believe in heaven, anyway,” said Pot Shot casually. “Opiate of the masses an’ all that.”

“Opiate of the masses, that you readin’ again, is it?” retorted Gutsy.

“Opiate?” said Jessop thoughtfully. “No, wait lads, he could be onto something. That would explain it. What if ol’ Fritzy-boy, is using some sort of experimental opium gas what got through our respirators? This, this could all be a giant illusination. You know like them Chinky opium dens they have in that fancy London?”

EVERSON FELT DISCONSOLATE. Since the gas cloud cleared and the astounding change to the landscape had revealed itself he began to feel power dripping away from him. It was all he’d wished for, for months, yet now he was not yet ready to relinquish it so easily. Not until he was sure that it was over, that they were all safe.