Iain Gale - The Black Jackals

‘Has he? Well, we’re pretty much in the same boat, Sergeant. We’re North Kents. My name’s Lamb. Lost our people at Wavre. We’re heading south west. Same as you, judging from your choice of route. Can I meet your men?’

McKracken nodded. ‘Of course, sir.’

They walked across to where the five men were standing. As Lamb approached, three of them, Stanton, Driscoll and Blake, stood to attention. Lamb noticed that the other two did not – Archer, clearly on account of his deafness. The other man looked up and with a sullen, ash-grey face stared at Lamb, who put on a smile and spoke. ‘Good morning. Seems as if you men are in the same boat as us. Gone adrift. Well, I intend to find our unit, and the best thing would be for you to fall in with us. Sarnt McKracken here agrees. Who are you? Corporal Stanton, I know you already.’

One by one the others introduced themselves with name, rank and serial number: ‘Driscoll, Private, sir. Lancashire Fusiliers. Me and the Corporal here got lost when Jerry attacked on the Dyle. Had to keep low and when it blew over we couldn’t find the unit.’

‘Blake, sir, Private, North Staffs. Same with us, sir, really. Our RSM told us to stick to the Bren in our trench, and we did just that. Shot up a few Jerries. Didn’t we, Taff? But they just kept coming, sir. We was about to pull out when an officer comes over and tells us to hang on. Says reinforcements is coming up the line. So we hung, on, didn’t we, Taff?’ He turned to the ashen-faced man, who looked at him blankly. ‘But no one came. Not a soul. Officer must have got it wrong.’

The other man spat suddenly and looked up at Lamb. ‘Mitchell, sir, North Staffs. Like Blake says, an officer told us that we’d be relieved, but we never were. Ran out of ammo, and then we scarpered. Passed all our mates, killed. No reinforcements. Nothing.’ The man stared again at the ground. Lamb turned to the last man, the gunner: ‘And you, you must be Archer.’

The man looked up and frowned. ‘Sorry, sir. Can’t hear a blind thing. Gone deaf, see? On account of the shelling. Can’t hear a thing, sir.’

Lamb nodded his head. ‘Yes, I see.’ He patted the man on the shoulder. ‘Not to worry. Stick with us. You’ll be all right.’

He turned to McKracken. ‘Well done for getting them together, Sarnt. They seem in good spirits. All save one.’ He gestured to Mitchell.

‘Yes, sir. I’ll keep my eye on him.’

‘Jolly good. You’d better see my sergeant.’ He turned. ‘Sarnt Bennett!’

Bennett arrived. Lamb spoke quietly to him. ‘Six odds and sods to join us, Sarnt Bennett. They’re either hopelessly lost or they’re deserters. But I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. They don’t look like bad sorts and they seem keen to go on, in any case. But keep your eye on them.’

Bennett smiled: ‘Very good sir. I’ll treat them just as if they were my own.’

With their newly acquired ‘odds and sods’ in tow, they pushed on across the fields, on roads that at times seemed no more than dust tracks. Another small town appeared, La Hulpe, but it too was deserted. They were climbing steadily now along a natural ridge and by Lamb’s compass were moving west by south west. He felt the pain in his heel with each step but said nothing. Smart, though, could see him wince. The pain in his back where he had been hit by the tree was also proving a hindrance to marching, and he hoped it did not presage anything serious. He knew too that he must keep up the pace for the men if they were to make any ground before nightfall. He was taking them west and then had thought it best to head north towards Brussels.

He saw a signpost pointing to the left off the road and for a reason he couldn’t fathom the names it bore struck him as curiously familiar: Lasne, Plancenoit.

Then as he looked, he was transported back to officer training classes in Tonbridge, to a young man seated at a desk studying long-distant British victories. Plancenoit. That was it. Wasn’t that the name of the village on the left flank of another British army? The village through which the Prussians had advanced to save the day and grant them victory over another tyrant. His men were marching onto the field of Waterloo. Smiling, he signalled to Bennett to come up. The man was nonplussed as to his grin.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Sarnt Bennett, do you have any idea where we are? Where exactly we’re going, I mean?’

‘On the road to Tournai, sir?’

‘Yes, of course we are, but here. Right here. Do you realise where we are right now?’

‘Can’t say as I do, sir.’

‘Waterloo, man. We’re on the battlefield of Waterloo.’

The sergeant smiled. ‘Are we, sir? Well, I’ll be . . . Shall I tell the men, sir? It might buck them up.’

‘Yes, go ahead, Sarnt. Why don’t you tell them? Anything to keep their spirits up, and we’ll need to stop soon enough anyway.’

They were in Plancenoit now and walking past the little church with its walled graveyard before turning right down a hedge-lined avenue. After a few minutes, and after a steady climb uphill beneath a canopy of branches, they emerged onto a plain. Away to the west the sun was sinking on the horizon, sending a glow across fields high with green corn and barley. To their left the landscape opened out before them and he could see the centre of what had been Wellington’s line. The men, although they had been informed by Sergeant Bennett as to where they were, seemed largely oblivious to the significance of the place and carried on marching along the crest of the ridge.

Valentine, however, approached Lamb wearing his usual, irritating grin. ‘Quite a coincidence, sir, isn’t it? Us being here.’

‘Yes, Corporal. I can’t say that I’d been expecting it.’

‘To tell the truth, sir, I think we are a little off course.’

‘You do?’

‘A little too far south, sir. In fact I suspect that we’re actually in the French sector.’

Lamb cursed. Might he have allowed the romantic idea of being in this place to divert him from their purpose? Worse than that, he seemed to have been caught out by Valentine.

They were nearing a crossroads now. It occurred to Lamb that it must surely be Wellington’s crossroads – his command post, at the centre of the ridge where the British infantry had stood against Napoleon. Up ahead he could see a lorry, and around it a group of soldiers.

Lamb counted six of them and whispered, ‘All right, Corporal, get ready.’

As the shadowy figures ahead noticed them, Lamb’s men froze and readied their weapons. He drew his revolver and waved the platoon forward as they began to edge away into a loose battle formation. He was trying to look more closely now at the men by the lorry in the half light, to make out the shape of their helmets, the easiest giveaway to their nationality. And then he saw to his relief that they were the distinctive bowl-shaped helmets of the French ‘poilus’. ‘All right, men, they’re French. Seems you must be right, Valentine.’

He moved to the front of the column and walked on. The French soldiers looked round and, seeing the shallow helmet of the British Tommy, did not bother even to pick up their guns, which lay piled against the side of the vehicle. One of them walked towards Lamb, and as they got closer to one another he opened a cigarette case. ‘Cigarette?’

Lamb noticed that he wore the insignia of an officer. A lieutenant of infantry. He reached out and took one of the precious cigarettes. Filterless, Turkish. ‘Thank you, Lieutenant.’

The man spoke in good English. ‘Etienne de Noyon, 116th Infantry. We did not expect to see you English down here. You are lost?’

‘Yes, I suspect that we are. Sorry, Peter Lamb, North Kents. We’ve become detached from our unit. I don’t suppose they’ve come this way?’