Pat Kelleher - Black Hand Gang

Atkins knew he had seconds to act. He clamped a muddy hand over the German’s mouth. The Hun clawed desperately at his wrist. Atkins adjusted his position so he was astride the man’s chest and was able to use his knee to pin the man’s upper arm to the ground, leaving a hand free to unsheath his bayonet. The German tried to bite Atkins’ hand, desperate to stop him. Out the corner of his eyes Atkins made out the other members of his Black Hand Gang engaged in similar private struggles. It was desperate fighting, no rules. This was war at its most raw, most visceral, most base. The only sound was the slap of mud or splash of water as boots sought for purchase on soft tissue; grunts of exertion as the struggle turned first one way then the next, each opponent knowing it was killed or be killed.

Gritted teeth. Little explosions of breath, spittle flecks bubbling up at the corners of the mouth, face red with effort, neck taut with strain as Atkins leant forward trying to use his bodyweight to press his bayonet home. The Hun kicked, trying to dislodge him. The point of his bayonet against the Hun’s ribs. His eyes creasing, pleading, hands slick with mud losing their grip, the bayonet pushing into the thick serge of his uniform but not puncturing. It was all now dependant on who could last out the longest, but Atkins had gravity on his side.

The blade sank suddenly, plunging Atkins’ face unexpectedly towards his enemy’s, whose eyes widened in shock. He tried to focus on Atkins as his hand clawed weakly at his face. Atkins turned away and raised himself to avoid the filthy, clammy hand. Then, hardly able to see for the stinging tears welling up in his eyes he muttered, “sorry,” and used his bodyweight to push the bayonet further in. Blood bubbled and frothed at the corners of the Hun’s mouth. Atkins could feel the warm exhalation of breath on his face waning. The man’s eyes lost focus and beneath him Atkins felt his chest fall for the last time. He collapsed with effort and relief onto the body feeling his heart beating fit to burst, a pulse suddenly pounding painfully at the base of his skull behind his right ear. He rolled over onto his back, his chest heaving with sobs he tried to stifle. To his left he saw Porgy sitting with his head in his hands. Hobson was wiping his bayonet on a German’s tunic. Three Huns lay about the shell hole in unnatural positions. A fourth lay face down in the water. Gutsy grabbed Atkins and pulled him into a sitting position, holding his head between his knees as he dry-retched.

“Get it up, son, you’ll feel better,” Gutsy whispered. Atkins tried to make himself heave. It didn’t take much before he vomited, spitting out the stringy mucus and half-digested bits that remained in his mouth. Gutsy pulled his bayonet from the dead Hun and handed it back to him. “You did well.”

They made their way back to their line but when they came to their wire, they couldn’t find the gap. Following Hobson, they inched their way along the wire, careful not to touch any of the makeshift alarms of tin cans containing pebbles that hung from them before finding one. They edged through and towards their lines until they could see the sandbag parapets of their own trenches. From the dark ahead of them came an aggressive hiss.

“Password.”

“Hampstead” Hobson hissed back and began crawling forwards, beckoning the others to follow. There was sudden rapid fire, and the whole world went to hell. Porgy screamed. A flare went up from the trench. Hobson shouted: “You’re shooting your own bloody men, hold your fire!” There were far away shouts from the German line, a German flare and then the whine of bullets splashing into the mud around them.

Shot at from behind, shot at from in front, Atkins scrambled for the sandbags and the trench. Hands reached up, grabbed him and pulled him over the parapet to safety. Hobson was already over and laying into the Jock sentry with a torrent of sergeantly abuse. Gutsy was sat on the firestep checking himself all over for wounds but there was no sign of Porgy. Atkins stood on the firestep and, against all his better instincts, he peered over the top. He saw something that could be Porgy some five or six yards away. Sporadic shots from the German line continued to bury themselves into the mud around him.

“Only! Only, I’m hit,” whimpered Porgy.

Before he knew what he was doing, Atkins was scrambling over the parapet and wriggling forward on his elbows.

“Come back you bloody fool!”

Atkins slithered on, the odd bullet whining over his head. He reached Porgy who was lying on his side groaning. He gripped Porgy’s hand and pulled, trying to drag him through the mud, but he was too heavy. There only one thing for it. As quickly as he could, Atkins picked him up under the armpits and hauled him backwards, step by muddy step, towards the trench amid the whine and splatter of German bullets. Reaching the sandbags, he tipped the barely conscious Porgy over the parapet and into the arms of his waiting mates, before leaping into the trench after him. Trembling, he sat down heavily on the firestep and watched as Gutsy looked Porgy over.

“Hell’s bells, Porgy you’re a lucky one.”

Atkins could see a bloody groove on Porgy’s left temple where a bullet had grazed him. “Head wound.”

“Good job it didn’t hit anything important, eh?” croaked Porgy.

“Barely a scratch, y’daft beggar. You’ll live.”

Porgy looked up as that sank in and seemed to rally, turning on the sentry loitering off to his side. “All the way to the Hun wire, an ambush by Jerry, and I get shot by my own bloody side!” he growled, attempting to get up, but Gutsy held him down.

“Och, sorry mate how wis ah tae know? This isnae your section o’ the line. You could a been Kaiser Bill hisself fer all I knew!”

Atkins looked up as a grubby mud-slathered Hobson stood over him. “That,” he spat, “was a bloody stupid thing to do.”

“Couldn’t leave him, Sar’nt.”

“Quite, right lad,” said Hobson, gently patting him on the shoulder.

As if that were all the permission he needed, Atkins felt great sobs well up within him and his shoulders started to shake.

“You’ll be all right son. You did well tonight. Take Porgy to have his scratch seen to. Don’t want him missing out on the fun later, do we? Then go and get yourself cleaned up and get some kip. Big day tomorrow.”

“Sar’nt.”

Atkins and Gutsy made their way along the fire trench, carrying a dazed and bloody Porgy between them, his head now roughly bandaged with a field dressing. They turned down a communications trench and weaved their way to the Regimental Aid Post. The MO wasn’t very happy about being woken up, but soon cleaned and stitched the wound before packing them off.

Atkins went back to the water butts in the support trench to clean himself up.

Ketch caught up with him.

“I heard what you did, Atkins,” he said.

“Any one of us would have done the same.”

“But they didn’t did they? It was you, weren’t it? Bit of a glory hound are we? Your mates might think you’re the bee’s knees right now, but I know different. You’re bad news, Atkins. I’m watching you.”

Atkins was too weary to argue. He crept back into the dugout, crawled under his ration blanket and dozed fitfully as the rats scurried across the floor beneath him.

31 stOctober 1916

My Dearest Flora,

As I write to you tonight I have no further news of William. Last week, out of the trenches, I tramped around the field hospitals again. I showed his picture about and, though I feared what I might find, I visited the army cemeteries hereabout. I even buttonholed a relief column to ask if they’d seen him. I can bring you no peace, I’m afraid. But do not despair. He may still turn up. It might be that he is only lost and taken up with another regiment, or else been wounded and travelling between hospitals. It is too soon to give up. We must both hope that he will come home.