My Brother's Keeper (5 page)

‘Yes sir!' said Jonesy. ‘Just waiting for the wire-cutting party to return.'

At that moment, three dark figures appeared at the parapet. Alfie's heart leapt into his mouth as they climbed over and jumped down into the trench. But they weren't Jerries, they were British, each man carrying a large pair of wire cutters.

‘We've cleared a path, sir,' one of them said, speaking quietly to the Captain.

‘Good work, chaps.' He turned to the rest of them. ‘The briefing for this evening is simple. We're going to give Jerry a bloody nose and make him wish he'd never started this war. I expect you all to do your duty and fight like true Englishmen – or like devils, I don't much care which. Best of luck to you.'

He nodded, and three ladders were raised to the parapet. Alfie and his mates lined up by the nearest. ‘Stay close to me, Alfie,' Ernie whispered, then started climbing.

Alfie swallowed hard and followed him into the darkness.

Alfie climbed the ladder up to the parapet then started slithering forward on his front, his rifle slung over his back. The ground was uneven and bumpy, mostly mud with occasional patches of sliminess that Alfie didn't want to think about. He knew there were plenty of bodies in no-man's land, some quite close to the trench, and he hated the idea that he might actually find himself crawling over an old rotting corpse.

More clouds covered the moon now, the darkness seeming to press down on him like a physical weight. Alfie could barely see the soles of Ernie's boots ahead of him, or the other men. They were moving quietly, but not quietly enough for Alfie. He heard every
breath, every rustle, every clink of metal. How could Fritz not hear it all too? Every gun in the German trenches must be aimed at them, ready to fire…

There were plenty of obstacles as well. First, the barbed wire protecting their own trench. The ‘path' cut through it turned out to be quite narrow: Alfie's sleeve was caught by the rusty barbs and he had to tug fiercely several times to release it. Then they had to crawl into and out of a series of shell craters, the bottoms filled with foul-smelling sludge or stagnant water. Finally they reached the wire in front of the German trench and crept through the gap made by the wire-cutting party.

Ernie stopped suddenly and Alfie bumped into him, scraping his nose on one of Ernie's boots. Somebody nearby was speaking quite loudly, and Alfie was about to hiss at whoever it was to shut up before he realised the language wasn't English. He froze. Two German sentries were talking to each other in the trench less than ten yards away. The clouds parted briefly to reveal the rest of the raiding party motionless as well, then Alfie saw Captain Johnson gesture to the two men closest to him. They nodded, slid forwards silently, and climbed over the German parapet.

Seconds later one of the men appeared at the parapet and beckoned to the raiding party to follow. Alfie jumped into the trench with the rest and saw the dead bodies of two Germans, one very young, sitting propped against the rear wall, their faces ghostly white, the fronts of their field-grey uniforms stained black by the blood still flowing from their gaping throats. For a moment Alfie couldn't take his eyes off them, mostly because they seemed so… ordinary. They were the enemy, of course – the monsters he knew as Jerry, Fritz, the evil Hun – but now he was close he could see they were men too, like his mates or the porters back home. Like him, in fact.

Things were happening around Alfie. Captain Johnson gave orders for the raiding party to split into several smaller groups: a couple to secure each end of this trench, one to accompany him down the nearest communication trench, another led by Lieutenant Reynolds. Alfie hoped he would be picked by the Captain, but found himself instead in the Lieutenant's group along with Ernie, Cyril and George.

‘Right, this way,' whispered the Lieutenant, heading off down the trench.

Alfie followed, pulling his rifle over his head so he could hold it in front of him. It felt very long with the
bayonet fixed and much heavier than usual. A hand grabbed his arm and his heart leapt into his mouth, but it was only Cyril.

‘Try to stay calm, Alfie,' Cyril murmured. ‘You'll be fine with us, I promise.'

Alfie nodded, then nearly tripped over another German body, this one sprawled across the trench. Just beyond the corpse was the entrance to a dugout, and as they reached it the two raiders who had dealt with the sentries emerged from within. They were both carrying nailed clubs dripping with blood, and hurried off down the trench without even glancing at Lieutenant Reynolds or Alfie or his mates.

The Lieutenant led them into the dugout, although Alfie immediately thought that was the wrong name for it. A dozen steps led down into something more like a room in a posh house, or at least a very fancy cellar. It had wooden floorboards, four beds, a couple of large chests against the walls for storage, and a table and four chairs in the middle. A big oil lamp hung from a hook in the ceiling, casting its light on three bodies face down on the floor, each in the middle of a widening pool of blood.

‘Old Fritz certainly knows how to look after himself, doesn't he?' said Cyril.

‘Too right,' muttered George. ‘My house in Blighty isn't this comfortable.'

‘Well, we're not here to comment on the decor,' said Reynolds. ‘It's intelligence we're after. Find whatever you can, lads – maps, letters, notebooks, anything.'

He opened one of the chests and rummaged through it, Ernie tackling another. Cyril and George started going through the pockets of the dead men, pulling out and examining whatever they found.

Alfie stood watching, unwilling to touch any of the bodies, but then something caught his eye: a photograph in the hand of the nearest corpse. He bent down and lifted it free, carefully avoiding the dead fingers.

One corner was stained crimson with blood, but most of the picture was still clear. It showed a pretty young woman with blonde hair and a lovely smile. Something was written on the back of the picture, but Alfie couldn't read the spiky handwriting.

‘Any idea what this says, sir?' he asked the Lieutenant, showing him.

‘I'm afraid my German isn't very good,' said the Lieutenant, taking the photograph and holding it under the lamp so he could see the words clearly.
‘Mit liebe
… I think that means with love…
deine Frieda
. Your Frieda? That must be her name.' Their eyes met, and they both looked down at the body on the floor of the dugout.

Alfie thought the dead man must have often looked at the picture, and wondered when pretty Frieda would find out that he wouldn't be coming home.

The Lieutenant returned the photograph to the dead man, gently placing it on the floor beside him.

There was the sound of rifle fire nearby, and the soft crump of a Mills bomb exploding. The Lieutenant strode over to the steps and peered upwards.

‘Time we made tracks.' He stuffed some papers he was holding into a pocket and pulled his Webley from its holster. ‘Follow me, lads. Eyes peeled!'

Alfie expected to encounter the same darkness as before when they emerged from the dugout, but the trench was filled with a strange, flickering light. A German flare was dropping from the sky above them, and as he watched two more followed.

‘That's torn it,' muttered Ernie. ‘They'll be all over us now.'

Just then three Germans appeared out of the shadows further down the trench. One of them fired his rifle, and the bang was deafening in the confined
space. The bullet whizzed over Alfie's head like a furious wasp and smacked into the sandbags of the trench wall behind him. Ernie, Cyril, George and the Lieutenant raised their revolvers and blasted away at the Germans, who immediately turned and fled.

The Lieutenant yelled, but Alfie's ears were ringing and he couldn't make out what he was saying. Ernie grabbed Alfie, and then they were heading back in the direction they had come, Cyril and George leading, Lieutenant Reynolds at the rear, continually glancing over his shoulder. Alfie's heart thumped in his chest and he couldn't catch his breath, but his hearing recovered quickly enough. There was more firing, and more yelling too, the noise seeming to come from everywhere.

Moments later they arrived at the point where they'd started. Jonesy was there with half a dozen men, several of them wounded. The face of one was a mess of blood.

‘What's going on, Sergeant?' said the Lieutenant. ‘Who started the shooting?'

‘Ah, begging your pardon, sir, that would be the Captain,' said Jonesy. ‘There were no Jerries in the communication trench so he led his group off to find some. He saw a couple and opened fire on them,
which seems to have woken the rest up. I'm afraid we've taken a lot of casualties, sir. At least half the raiding party are dead.'

‘I don't believe it,' said the Lieutenant. ‘Where is he now, the fool?'

‘Speak of the devil,' muttered George, looking round. ‘Here he comes.'

Alfie turned round too and saw Captain Johnson hurrying along the trench towards them. He had lost his helmet and his eyes were wild in his blackened face.

‘Right, follow me, you men!' he said. ‘There are plenty more Huns to kill.'

‘I'm sorry, sir, but I think we should get back to our lines,' said the Lieutenant. ‘Jerry knows we're here, so the longer we stay, the more dangerous it will be.'

‘What are you talking about, Reynolds?' said the Captain, breathing heavily. ‘I wouldn't have let you come if I'd known you were the type to get windy.'

‘I'm not being windy, sir.' The Lieutenant's voice was full of anger. ‘I just don't think we ought to risk losing any more men.'

‘Don't be ridiculous!' said the Captain, laughing. ‘That's what they're for!'

Someone roared above Alfie and his head snapped up. The huge silhouette of a German soldier appeared on the top of the trench wall, outlined by a flickering Very light, throwing something down at them. Pistols barked then an enormous bang blew Alfie off his feet and he blacked out briefly. When he came to, the trench was full of noise again, but all he could see was Cyril's face next to his. Cyril's eyes were closed, and Alfie wondered how his friend could sleep so peacefully with such a racket going on around them.

Then a thin line of blood trickled from the corner of Cyril's mouth.

Rough hands grabbed Alfie's arms and yanked him to his feet. He saw Ernie's face looming over him, his mouth moving, but Alfie couldn't make out what his mate was saying. Beyond Ernie there was movement and shouting, rifle fire and the bangs of explosions, Mills bombs and German grenades, and smoke, lots of choking, acrid smoke, and a machine gun rattling away like something demented.

‘Alfie, pull yourself together!' Ernie yelled in his face, shaking him.

‘I'm… I'm all right,' said Alfie. ‘But what about Cyril? Is he dead?'

‘No, he isn't. We've got to get him out of here.'

Alfie could see now what was happening. The Germans were attacking along the trench from both directions, and from above it too. Lieutenant Reynolds and Jonesy were firing back with their revolvers, protecting the other survivors as they climbed a Jerry ladder someone must have found. There was no sign of Captain Johnson, but Cyril was lying at the base of the ladder, with George kneeling beside him.

‘We'll have to carry him,' said George. ‘Here, help me get him up.'

Ernie heaved Cyril onto George's shoulder in a fireman's lift, Cyril's head and arms hanging limply down George's back. Then George started climbing the ladder.

‘You next, Alfie,' said Ernie. ‘Don't crawl this time, either. Run.'

Alfie stepped forward to follow George, and suddenly realised he couldn't grip the rungs because his hands were full – he had managed to hold on to his rifle in all the chaos, although he hadn't fired a single shot with it yet. He looked at Ernie.

‘Not till you're out of the trench too,' Alfie said. ‘I'll cover you.'

‘Just get a move on!' Ernie snapped at him.

Alfie slung his rifle over one shoulder and scrambled up the ladder, ducking as he heard the buzzing of German bullets, three smacking into the sandbags of the trench wall just a few inches from his face. At the top he flung himself into no-man's land, then pulled his rifle off his shoulder, kneeled and aimed down into the trench. Ernie was climbing the ladder now, leaving only the Lieutenant and Jonesy below.

Alfie saw movement to their left, and he fired five rounds rapid, as he'd been trained, the empty cartridge cases pinging out of his rifle. He had no idea if he'd hit anything, but he felt a strange sense of satisfaction in doing the job he'd been given. The Lieutenant and Jonesy took their chance. They each lobbed a Mills bomb, one to the left, the other to the right, and scrambled up the ladder too.

‘Come on, Alfie!' yelled Ernie, and they ran as the bombs went off.

More flares whooshed up, from both sides, filling the sky with a sickly green and yellow light. Alfie could see clearly where he was going, but that only revealed the many places where he might stumble or fall or get caught in the wire. The rattle of rifle fire
and the steady, deadly chatter of the machine gun grew in intensity, the rounds humming as they flew, dozens thumping into the mud around his feet.

At last Alfie glimpsed his own trench twenty yards ahead and tried to speed up, but his chest was bursting and his legs simply refused to move any faster. Ernie was beside him, dragging him along by the arm, the Lieutenant and Jonesy in front.

‘Don't shoot!' the Lieutenant shouted. ‘Raiding party coming in!'

Alfie felt a stab of the purest terror. It hadn't occurred to him that the men in his own line might think he and Ernie and the Lieutenant and Jonesy were the enemy and fire on them. But the Lieutenant's warning seemed to work and a few seconds later the four of them jumped down into the trench unharmed. The fire-step was manned. It looked like the entire Company had been brought out on stand-to.