The Sorrowing Wind (The Apple Tree Saga Book 3) Read online

  ‘I feel almost sorry for poor old Fritz,’ a man named Logan said to Michael. ‘We’ve been pounding him for three weeks. I shouldn’t think he could stand much more. It should be a walkover, when we attack.’

  As they rode back again, down onto the fields where the whole brigade lay in bivouac, Michael felt an upsurge of hope. There were two thousand men mustered below, and everywhere else along the line the concentration of troops was enormous. Surely the offensive must carry the war? Official communiques were encouraging. They told of successes further south. And yet, somehow, sneaking in under the official news, there were rumours that spoke of bad setbacks everywhere; of terrible losses; of whole divisions cut to pieces on the enemy wire. How did the rumours get about? he wondered. Were they, as the colonel stated, merely the work of German spies?

  That night was cold, and because the encampment was hidden from the enemy by two or three ridges of high ground, the men were allowed to light fires. They flickered up everywhere, small ghosts of fires in the damp darkness, each with its close-packed ring of men. Some groups told stories. Some sang songs. From a few came the sound of a mouth-organ playing. And, going about from group to group; Colonel Nannet in his British warm, with his collar up and his cap pulled well down, stopped to exchange a word or two with the men of his battalion.

  Michael, with the other officers of his company, stood at the opening of their tent. Lightwood was smoking a large cigar. The scent of it wafted on the damp air.

  ‘There goes the bid man, dishing out his eve-of-action comfort.’

  ‘ “A little touch of Harry in the night,” ’ said Ashcott. ‘ “Oh, God of Battles, steel my soldiers’ hearts!” ’

  ‘Something the poor devils could well do without,’ said Lightwood. ‘Still, he’s not a bad old cock, really.’

  The colonel retired to his quarters at last. B Company officers retired to theirs. Michael sat looking towards the west, where gun flashes lit the cloudy sky, beyond the contours of Calou Ridge. Underneath, in the darkness, the camp fires still flickered, kept alive assiduously with twigs and leaves and bits of grass. Some of the men were still singing.

  ‘When this lousy war is over,

  Oh, how happy I shall be!

  I will tell the sergeant-major

  Just how much he means to me …’

  From first light onwards, the Allied bombardment was intensified, all along the enemy lines. It was Bastille Day and the French guns were particularly active. At ten-thirty, the sun was already very warm, shining down on the columns of men marching along the Fricourt road.

  They were among the trenches again; on ground that covered, all too shallowly in places, the dead of two years’ warfare. All along the old front line, the bodies of those killed in more recent fighting still lay about, and the stench of corruption was everywhere. Sometimes these bodies appeared to heave, because of the flies seething upon them, and because of the movement of scavenging rats.

  At the village of Fricourt, now in ruins, the battalion rested for several hours, awaiting orders. They got food and drink from a field kitchen, but every mouthful tasted of lyddite from the batteries of guns firing nearby. Such news as came was so far good. The enemy line was reported broken and the Germans were said to be giving way. Our Indian cavalry had been in action and were at this moment riding the enemy into the ground. Certainly a great many prisoners had been taken. Whole columns of them kept coming down, eyes staring out of blackened faces; exhausted, shrunken, scarcely able to lift their feet.

  From Fricourt the battalion marched to the village of Mametz, now no more than a heap of rubble. Among the ruins stood a column of motor ambulance cars, and there were crowds of British wounded awaiting attention at the medical aid post. They seemed cheerful and said the day was going well.

  ‘We’ve cleared the way for you up there. You’ve got nothing to do but go round with the mop.’

  ‘Jerry is running for all he’s worth.’

  ‘Bazentin is in our hands …’

  ‘Mametz Wood is in our hands …’

  But one man, with bandaged head, sitting smoking a cigarette, gave a cynical laugh.

  ‘Dead hands, mostly, you’ll find,’ he said.

  Leaving Mametz, the battalion moved down a sunken road, then forked off into a valley. On their right rose a long escarpment. On their left the ground sloped, open, all the way up to Mametz Wood. The noise of the bombardment was almost more than they could bear, for, all across the open area, batteries of British field-guns kept up an incessant fire, and beyond the escarpment were the French seventy-fives. The shriek of shells overhead never stopped, for the British heavies were also at work, some way behind.

  The rough road was strewn with dead. Michael tried not to look too closely, for it seemed to him there were many more khaki-clad bodies than field-grey, and now the number of walking-wounded had grown to a never-ending stream. Silent men, trudging past as though indifferent; mere shadows of men, hollow-eyed, the same as the Germans; men whose last remaining strength was needed to carry them along the road.

  ‘What lot are you?’ Minching asked, as one group passed.

  ‘Manchesters,’ came the brief answer.

  ‘What lot are you?’ he asked another.

  ‘South Staffords ‒ what there is left of us!’ a man said, snarling.

  Everywhere along the valley lay the carcasses of dead horses, their heads thrown back, their legs in the air. Some were transport horses, and their smashed limbers lay nearby; but some were cavalry horses with braided saddles and gleaming stirrups, and their riders lay only God knew where.

  Down the road now came wounded troopers of an Indian regiment, some leading their terrified mounts, others slumped as though dead in their saddles. One elderly Sikh, having watched his wounded horse collapse, was on his knees beside it, and the tears were running down his bearded face. His lips moved as though in prayer. His hands made a little secret sign. He took his revolver from the saddle and shot the dying horse in the head. He knelt, watching, until it was still. Then he turned the revolver on himself and fell across the horse’s body.

  ‘Christ!’ said a soldier to his mate. ‘Did you see that?’

  ‘No one saw nothing!’ shouted a sergeant, determined to keep the column moving. ‘Close up, there, Number One Platoon! Keep your dressing by the left!’

  The men marched on along the valley, passing between the two flanking storms of the great bombardment, under a sky that shrieked and sizzled with the flying shells.

  Logan came up and rode with Michael a little way. He had been talking to a wounded officer of the South Staffords.

  ‘He says he’s been here since the big push started. A whole fortnight in the front line. No wonder they all look such wrecks, is it?’

  ‘What’s the name of this place, did he say?’

  ‘Seems they call it Happy Valley.’

  They came out into the open, among fields of tobacco and turnips and corn, the crops all trodden into the ground. It was now seven o’clock in the evening, and the battalion dug itself in for the night, close beside a wood known, from its shape, as Flatiron Copse. Enemy shells were falling all the time. Eight men were killed before the shelter-trenches were dug. Another six were badly wounded.

  Nobody slept. The shelling was too close for that. It was also very cold, and the men, having left their greatcoats at Morlancourt, lay huddled close together for warmth, trying to make the most of their groundsheets. Dawn, when it came, brought some relief, and there was breakfast of a sort, with hot sweet tea and a tot of rum.

  The battalion fell in, and the whole brigade moved off eastwards in a thick white mist, forward into the battle area. The ground was broken and badly cratered, littered with debris and dead bodies. There were wounded men, too, who had lain out all night and who now reached up with pleading arms as the marching columns tramped by. One or two soldiers, not yet hardened, stepped out of line, reaching for their water-bottles, but were herded back by a watchful N.C.O.


  ‘Leave that to the stretcher-parties! You’ll need them water-bottles yourselves directly!’

  The brigade formed up in a valley south of High Wood. The Second Three Counties were in reserve. They held a position at Trivet Spur, beside a rough track known as Windy Lane. The Second Worcestershire were nearby.

  A mile to the north, the Glasgows and the Queen’s formed the front line, and some of the Glasgows had already been in action during the night, in High Wood itself. Now they were attacking the main Switch Line, where the Germans, contrary to earlier reports, were as strong as ever. High Wood was thought to be safe, but as the Glasgows advanced across the open, they were cut down by enemy machine-guns firing from among the trees.

  Michael, watching through his field-glasses, could see it all: the double lines of kilted figures advancing up the open slope; the glint of a bayonet here and there; and then the terrible thinning-out as the Maxims raked them from front and rear. He could see the depleted line pressing onwards, with men of the King’s and the First Queen’s going up to fill the gaps; could see the line faltering again, the bodies thick in the green corn; and now the live men were falling too, crawling to the cover of shell-scrapes and craters. He saw the Worcesters go up to help: two companies into the wood; two attacking across the open; and he saw the pitiful remnants returning, dragging themselves back to their line.

  ‘What do you think, sir?’ Logan was saying to the colonel. ‘Shall we be sent up to help, d’you suppose?’

  Michael put down his glasses and turned a little, waiting for the answer, which was slow in coming. The colonel’s face was deep-lined, and his eyes were full of angry tears.

  ‘Is that what you want? ‒ To go the same way as those poor devils out there?’ But he quickly relented. ‘I’m sorry, Logan. I didn’t mean to snap your head off. I’ve no idea what our orders will be. All I know is that it’s madness attacking across that space while Fritz still holds that bloody wood. I’m sending along to Brigade H.Q. to tell them so.’

  At twelve noon, for half an hour, there was another bombardment by British guns, but it short-ranged and the shells fell on what was left of the Glasgows’ own forward line. German shells were exploding in the southern half of the wood, driving out the Worcesters and the South Staffords, many of whom were mown down by their own machine-guns before they were able to make themselves known.

  At four o’clock in the afternoon, two companies of the Second Three Counties were sent up into the wood: C Company under Logan and D Company under Tremearne: roughly two hundred men in all. The other two companies remained in their trenches, with enemy shells falling close, and at half-past-four orders came for them to advance up the open hillside.

  Colonel Nannet delayed. He wanted to be sure the wood was safe. He sent up a runner, who failed to return, and was about to send another when a message arrived from Brigade H.Q.: ‘High Wood is ours. Proceed as ordered.’ So, at six o’clock exactly, A Company under Ashcott and B Company under Michael climbed out into the open and began advancing up the slope towards the enemy Switch Line.

  The hillside was strewn with the dead and dying, the ground was broken everywhere, and black smoke drifted from left to right as enemy shelling intensified. Visibility was bad, and the slope grew steeper all the time, so that progress was slow, but once up and over the brow, the smoke lessened and it was like coming out into a brighter light again.

  Michael turned his head, first right, then left, to see how many of his men had gone, falling, unseen, behind the smoke. It seemed to him the line was still strong, the forward movement still determined, and he caught a glimpse of his sergeant’s face, calm, intent, open-eyed, under the brim of his steel helmet.

  Towards the top of the first slope, crossing a road, Michael turned aside to avoid a deep crater, and as he did so, three men with rifles rose from its shelter and fell in behind him: kilted men of the Highland regiment: survivors of the earlier attack.

  ‘We’re wi’ ye, laddie! And whoever you are you’re doing fine!’

  They were out past the corner of the wood now, moving across the wider space, inside the range of the worst shelling, though shrapnel was bursting overhead. A Company was on the right, B Company on the left, the two lines straggling but still moving forward in good order. The ground had flattened out again. The enemy line was only two hundred yards away.

  But now, suddenly, from the northernmost boundary of the wood, came a burst of machine-gun and rifle fire, and Michael, glancing back, saw his three Highlanders fall to the ground. Over on his right, A Company had received the first and the worst of the fire, and nearly half its men had fallen. The remainder struggled on, only to meet the same destructive fire from in front, as they tried to reach the enemy line. The task was beyond them and the few men remaining faltered badly, seeking shelter instinctively behind B Company, still advancing. Only Ashcott kept to the front, and, running close beside Michael, sobbed out, swearing:

  ‘The liars said the wood was ours! Why do they tell such lies, the bastards?’

  Then, abruptly, he was no longer there. His body was being trampled underfoot. His place beside Michael was taken by Gates. The noise of the Maxims was very loud. Their fire was withering, murderous, keen. Michael felt himself blinking, averting his face as though in a hailstorm, and all the time as he ran forward he felt he was pushing through a great bead curtain of spent bullets. He had the strange fancy that this bead curtain was his protection: that a deadly bullet would not get through: that all he had to do was to keep pushing forward.

  Gates was hit and fell with a terrible high-pitched scream. The man who took his place was sobbing and swearing, snorting for breath through wide-open mouth and wide-stretched nostrils. He was hit in the chest and fell headlong, and his rifle was thrown between Michael’s feet, causing him to stumble.

  Now, whenever he glanced to left or right, there were great gaps all along the line; gaps that were no longer filling up; gaps that grew bigger as he looked. He pressed on, leaping over a huddle of corpses, and as he did so he was hit in the thigh. He fell among the dead bodies.

  Twenty yards away lay a crater. He began crawling on his stomach towards it. A man looked over the edge and saw him. It was Alan Spurrey, his new young subaltern, bare-headed, having lost his helmet. Spurrey was wounded in both feet, but he crawled from the crater and wriggled forward, arms outstretched to help Michael.

  ‘Get your head down!’ Michael shouted. ‘Get down and get back, you bloody fool!’

  A machine-gun rattled, and Michael pressed his face to the ground. Bullets struck the turf beside him and ripped on in a curving line. When he looked up again, Spurrey was dead, his head shattered. Michael crawled on into the crater.

  It was not a bad wound: the bullet had entered the fleshiest part of the right thigh and had passed out behind; but the bleeding was heavy and soon soaked the dressing, so he used his tie as a tourniquet.

  When he looked out over the edge, there was no advancing line to be seen, for those few men who were left alive had sought shelter in the broken ground. He could see some of them nearby, crawling on their stomachs, and after a while two men joined him in the crater, one of them wounded in the chest.

  The wounded man, Aston, was in a bad way. Michael helped the other, a corporal named Darby, to dress the wound. He gave him a drink from his water-bottle.

  ‘What a mess it all is!’ Darby exclaimed. ‘What a stinking awful bloody mess!’ He looked at Michael with bitter defiance. ‘We never stood a chance of reaching the Germans. Neither us nor the other poor sods this morning. Surely the brasshats should’ve known?’

  ‘They know now,’ Michael said.

  ‘If I get back safe I swear I’ll get some bloody red-nosed brigadier and stick him through with my bloody bayonet!’

  ‘Is Aston your particular friend?’

  ‘He’s my brother-in-law. He married my sister before coming out. And what’ll she say when she hears he’s hurted?’

  ‘He may be all right. We must get h
im back as soon as we can.’

  ‘What a hope!’ Darby said. ‘What a bloody flaming hope!’

  A burst of machine-gun fire shut him up. He crouched low in the loose earth. Michael was wondering what had drawn the fire when a man rolled over the edge of the crater and lay down beside him. It was Sergeant Minching.

  ‘You all right, sir? I see you’re hit.’

  ‘Not too badly, though I’ve bled like a pig. It’s Aston here who’s in trouble.’

  Aston was only barely conscious. Minching bent over him, listening to his heartbeats and his breathing. Darby watched him.

  ‘Any hope, sarge?’

  ‘There’s always hope,’ Minching said. ‘The bullet’s missed his lungs, I would say, but we’ll have to be careful how we move him. Might be better to leave him here ‒ let Jerry find him and patch him up.’

  ‘Hell, no!’ Darby said.

  ‘He’d get attention that much sooner.’

  ‘What sort of attention, though, by God?’

  ‘The Jerries aren’t monsters. They’d take care of him all right.’

  ‘I’m getting him back,’ Darby said, ‘even if I have to do it by myself.’

  ‘All right, we’ll do it between us, don’t worry, as soon as it’s dark enough to move.’ Minching turned towards Michael. ‘What about you, sir? Can you walk?’

  ‘If not, I can always crawl.’

  A shrapnel shell burst in the air nearby, and they pressed their faces into the earth, while the balls blasted the crater’s edge. When Michael looked up, the smoke was drifting overhead. He called to Minching, who was looking out.

  ‘What’s going on out there? Can you see?’

  ‘I can see a bunch of our men, sir, falling back down the side of the wood. They’re making a dash for it, back to the line.’

  ‘No sign of their rallying?’

  ‘There’s nothing much left to rally, sir. A couple of dozen at the most.’