Justin Go - The Steady Running of the Hour

On balance Ashley wishes to be shot in the head, the most prosaic of deaths. He fears a stomach wound most, or anything that takes hours of agony, stranded in some godforsaken shellhole. If he has to get a wound like that, he hopes to bleed and die fast enough, or be able and willing to use his revolver. But he is not sure he could do that, no matter his wounds, and it troubles him. Ashley worries about moaning in front of the men, for he has seen the toughest of officers whine like children. Terrifically wounded soldiers of any rank are a danger, for if they cry out within earshot of the trenches, brave men might go out for them and get themselves killed. The best thing is to quickly bleed to death, or if you can to bite down on something and wait for nightfall.

Three days ago the Berkshires had launched an attack in this sector, but the Germans repelled them with intense artillery and machine-gun fire. The Germans had rallied in a counterattack that had ended with desperate hand-to-hand fighting here at Resolve Trench. Since then there have been many wounded stranded in the shattered forest of no-man’s-land, just beyond the British wire. By now most of these had died or been brought in, but there remained one wounded German who had been weeping and raving all the while. He was still alive. He lay less than twenty yards from the British front-line trench.

Ashley was the only man in the company who understood German. He had been listening to the wounded man for three days.

The German passed between periods of lucidity and great delirium. At times he seemed to be dictating a letter to his wife, telling her that he was ready to die. At times he addressed the British directly, describing his wounds in detail, describing the shellhole he lay in, saying that he was running out of water but could survive if only they would bring him in. He explained that he had no quarrel with the English, that they were all brothers in God’s kingdom. Except for the word Kameraden , which the German repeated over and again, the British understood none of this.

The men nicknamed the wounded German “Kameraden.” One of the oldest men in the platoon, a soft-spoken postman called Stewart, had actually gone over the top at night to bring in Kameraden, but the Germans had seen him in the moonlight and begun strafing him with machine-gun fire. Stewart crawled back to the trench without ever seeing Kameraden.

Against all expectations Kameraden lived on, moaning all the while. He quoted popular songs or nursery rhymes or folk ballads. But mostly he recited poetry. Kameraden knew prodigious amounts of poetry, and Ashley wondered if he was a schoolmaster or a professor or even a poet himself, though he doubted the last. The German quoted whole long epics he knew by heart, and even the denser men could tell these were poems from the rhythm of the words or the patterns of rhymes. Ashley recognized only a few: Goethe’s “Mignons Gesang,” some verses by Heinrich Heine. One morning at dawn stand-to, Ashley was astonished to hear what he believed to be a German translation of Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty,” but the man fell into weeping before it was completed.

Late last night as Ashley was on watch, Kameraden’s moaning reached a fevered crescendo. The men sleeping on the trench floor complained of the noise. A few of them yelled at the German to shut up, but this brought out further cries of protest from the other Berkshires along the line.

— Wish the bugger would get it over with.

— Wish you’d get it over with. What if it was you out there, three days bleeding in the mud?

— I’d get it over with.

Ashley told the men to go back to sleep. He found Bradley, the platoon sergeant, and told him he was going into no-man’s-land to see Kameraden.

— It’s hopeless, sir. You can’t save him. The Huns might see you—

— I know, Ashley said. But I can’t stand it any longer.

Ashley pulled a pair of thick toeless stockings over his knees and elbows, then checked the cartridges in his revolver’s cylinder. He traveled north along the trench to get closer to Kameraden, stepping over men sleeping in niches in the wall or wrapped in capes on the muddy trench floor. They groaned in half-sleep and rolled in the mud. Ashley trudged up to the forward sap nearest Kameraden, really only a fortified shellhole holding a sentry and a few flares. The sentry jerked to the side when he saw Ashley, swiveling his rifle and then lowering it.

— Thought you was a German, sir. Can’t hear nothing over that blubbering.

— Certainly not.

— You understand German, don’t you sir? What’s he moaning on about now?

— He wants us to kill him.

Ashley saw the outline of the sentry’s helmet move from side to side as he shook his head. His face was sheathed in blackness.

— He never said that before, did he sir?

— No. I’m going over. Don’t fire unless they open on me, and only then well to the left. Eleven o’clock at the farthest, do you hear? I shan’t be far off.

Ashley rinsed his mouth from his canteen and spat into the mud. He stepped on the crude fire step, peering above the rim of the parapet. It was quiet and he guessed there was little wind, but the shattered trees had no leaves by which to judge.

Ashley climbed over the parapet. On elbows and knees he zigzagged through the British wire into the morass of no-man’s-land. His chin trailed in the mud. It took twenty minutes to go thirty yards. The stench was rich and sweet, decaying corpses and chloride of lime. He ascended the rim of a huge shell crater and floundered over. Inside there was a mound of dead Highland soldiers in muddied kilts and kneesocks. Ashley rested here and studied the terrain. The German was still wailing away, his voice hoarse. The sound was coming from the right.

Ashley crawled farther until the sound was very close. He flopped into another large shellhole. He saw Kameraden’s murky silhouette a few yards away, but Ashley was afraid the German might have a weapon, so he lay in silence waiting. After a few minutes a flare went up over no-man’s-land and the scene was illuminated.

Kameraden was a plump corporal from a Jäger regiment, known as forest hunters and expert riflemen. He was on his back, his tunic soaked with black blood where shrapnel had perforated his chest. His eyes were open but his face was turned up to the sky, watching the flare sink through the darkness. He was holding a water bottle in one hand and clutching his wounds with the other.

Ashley crawled up beside Kameraden and spoke softly in German. At first the man barely seemed to notice, perhaps mistaking him for a hallucination. He breathed in a terrible sucking wheeze. Suddenly the German’s head bolted and turned. He begged for water. He said his canteen was empty and he had already drunk all the water in the shellhole. Ashley took his water bottle from his waist and poured it onto Kameraden’s cracked lips. The liquid ran over his face and stained beard. Kameraden gulped feverishly, muttering something indecipherable.

Ashley heaved the German onto his back and began carrying him toward the British line, crouching as low as he could. Kameraden whined in pain. He was very heavy. Ashley could feel the man’s blood dripping down his neck into his shirt and it was hard to crouch with the weight of the body upon him. The mud sucked back at every step. Ashley lost his balance and dropped Kameraden. The German moaned as Ashley lifted him again. It took ten minutes just to get out of the crater.

A machine gun burst open on the German side. The British returned a few sharp rifle rounds, then a Lewis gun began rattling to Ashley’s right. He would never get Kameraden all the way to Resolve Trench. He went on forward anyway, the German raving with the pain of movement. It took twenty minutes to reach the shellhole full of dead Highlanders. They went over the lip and Kameraden slipped from Ashley’s grasp and rolled to the bottom. Ashley pulled Kameraden’s face out of the mud and propped him up. The man was in delirium again. He was talking to his wife, the mud trickling down his face. Ashley cursed and drew his revolver.