Pat Kelleher - Black Hand Gang

“You men!” he called, brandishing his Webley in their direction. “Pick up your weapons!” They ignored him. “Pick up your weapons!”

It was as if, in the absence of an enemy, he’d lost all authority. Isn’t that what he wanted all along? To shed the burden? It was the same along the entire front. Men had cast their rifles aside, sat down and were breaking out their iron rations and singing sentimental songs, sharing out the smokes, waiting… waiting for something. Nobody seemed sure what, but whatever it was, it wasn’t a subaltern with a pistol.

“It’s a higher authority we answer to now, mate,” one brazen private told him, jerking his chin towards the distant hills. “If we’re dead then the only route march I’m doing is through the pearly gates. Fag?”

Perplexed, Everson shook his head. Seemingly bereft of purpose, he wandered out along the wire entanglements that marked the British Line. Men lay where they had fallen, sobbing and crying in pain. Some were being tended to, some being ferried away on stretchers. If this was heaven, why were there still the wounded and suffering? Would heaven allow men to suffer with their guts hanging out? What kind of god was that?

He caught sight of 1 Section being herded towards him like wayward sheep by Sergeant Hobson, before he went to round up the rest of the scattered platoon. Everson addressed one of the men.

“Jellicoe?”

“Sir?”

“I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but the last I heard we were attacking the German positions in Harcourt Wood.”

“Wood seems to have gone now, sir,” chimed in Hopkiss.

“Thank you, yes, I can see that, Hopkiss, but the point remains. Until we know what we’re dealing with here I would prefer —”

An unearthly howl cut through the valley, echoing off the hillsides. As one, the Section raised their rifles, eyes surveying the landscape. Around them men started and turned to listen, uncertainty clouding their faces. Some began gathering their discarded equipment, looking expectantly towards the officer.

“What the bloody hell was that?” said Everson.

“It came from that forest, sir,” said Jellicoe.

“Right. Yes,” said Everson, feeling a resurgence of purpose and responsibility, “Jessop, stay here with your section, I’ll tell Hobson to rally the Platoon and pass on any orders.” He turned to address the other men. “The rest of you men get back to your platoon’s trenches and stand to! Until we know what’s going on I think we must remain on our guard.”

AS PLATOONS OF men slunk back to the trenches, overhead, Atkins heard a faint, familiar drone. High above he spotted two aeroplanes, each vying for an advantageous position from which to attack. One succeeded in manoeuvring above the other for a split second before it began descending in a slow smoky spiral. Atkins watched it drift down like a leaf until it was lost from sight behind the peaks of the newly risen hills. A high gust of wind had caught the untethered and slowly deflating German kite balloon, carrying it further and further away over the hills, buoyed aloft by swift currents of air.

A spatter of machine gun fire jerked him back to reality, if anything they were experiencing could be said to be reality. Another burst. And another. The field of fire swept across No Man’s Land. Tommies fell. Men scurried for cover and dived into shell holes with shouts of alarm and dismay.

“There!” said Gazette, spotting the muzzle flash of the machine gun as it fired off another burst. “It’s a Hun sap.”

They barely had time to follow Gazette’s stare towards a fortified shell-hole before the Maxim fire swept towards them. The Section scrambled for the cover of a shell hole, bullets spitting into the mud at their heels as they ran. As they threw themselves into the mud-filled pit a roar filled the air as the great ironclad bulk of HMLS Ivanhoe reared up out of a dip in front of them, like some great blind creature emerging from the primordial slime. It crashed down heavily, placing its metal carcass between them and the raking German machine gun. Atkins heard the bullets raining against the hide of the motorised beast.

Slowly its great six-pounder gun turned toward the emplacement. There was a brief pause before the gun fired. The machine gun emplacement erupted in a geyser of dirt and sandbags; smoke and screams filled the air as munitions went up in a series of secondary explosions. A ball of flame bloomed briefly within the remnants of the emplacement and mud and hot metal rained down, clinking dully against the armoured hulk.

Mercy banged on the side of the boojum. “Ere, conductor! Any room inside, it’s ruddy raining out here!”

The Tank gave no indication of human occupancy although, in reply, its motorised growl rose in pitch as if in recognition. Gears ground as the left hand track remained still and the right hand track spun slowly, swinging the tank away from them as it continued it halting, lethargic advance.

“Christ that was close. Bloody boojums, though, eh, Only?” said Mercy cracking a grin and slapping Atkins on the back.

“Right, you lot!” bellowed Sergeant Hobson herding the rest of the scattered platoon towards them. “Take a dekko and see how far this mud pie of ours goes. We also need to make sure Fritz hasn’t got anything else up his sleeve. One other thing. Nobody steps off this mud until further orders. Got it?”

“Yes Sergeant!”

“Right. Move out.”

Atkins fell in with Mercy and Gazette with Jessop taking the lead. The initial eerie tranquillity had now been shattered, spurring the growing sense of unease he felt at their surroundings. Along the line several other platoons were being ordered to move forward through the shell holes towards where the German lines should have been.

They came across the remains of an aeroplane lying on its back, its wheels splayed in the air. It was one of theirs, the Royal Flying Corps roundel clearly visible on the fuselage. The front was covered with mud, the remains of the propeller splintered as though it had ploughed head first into the mud before flipping and coming to rest. Oil leaked onto the ground from the engine, turning the mud beneath it to a thick black viscous puddle.

“Only, check the pilot blokes,” Jessop said, looking around warily.

Atkins passed his rifle to Porgy and got down on his hands and knees to crawl under the upturned machine. The observer was upside down in his cockpit, his head tilted back and his face planted in the mud. Atkins tried to push him up to relieve the pressure, but realised his efforts were futile. He was dead. Atkins moved towards the pilot. He crawled over the plane and let out a startled cry when his knee went through the doped cotton with a pop.

“Sorry, nothing! My fault,” he called out to reassure his startled fellows. “Hang on chum, we’ll get you out.”

Once Atkins had wriggled through the snapped spars and wire he found that the pilot had fallen out of his cockpit and lay in the small crushed space between machine and the upper wing, his neck broken. Awkwardly, Atkins shuffled out from under the shattered plane. As he did so he spotted a line of bullet holes stitched across the fuselage.

Atkins shook his head at Jessop.

“Both dead. Pilot’s got a broken neck. Looks like the other one was drowned in the mud.”

“Nothing we can do here, then,” said Jessop. “Ginger, Mercy, get those bodies out then salvage the guns and collect whatever ammunition you can from the plane. The rest of you spread out and move on.”

Porgy had been looking at the rear of the aeroplane. “Look at this, lads. What do you make of that?”

The tail had vanished, not ripped off or shot through, but simply amputated by a clean cut. Atkins looked around but could see no sign of the missing section.