Lovely War(77)

The silence, after the guns, was deafening. The fog muffled and muted everything. The air was so wet that breath became a slow drowning.

Low voices began calling out to one another. Cries of “Medic!” and “Stretcher!” pierced the cloud, but they seemed to die before reaching the ears of anyone who could help.

“Mason,” James whispered.

Mason was in his ear. “Quiet,” he hissed. “They’re coming.”

James stripped the clammy dewdrops clinging to his rifle and screwed on the bayonet.

A grenade exploded down the line. Chad and Billy. They’d gone that way. Were they all right? His pulse raced. How could he warn them, without drawing danger down on them all?

They landed softly, when they stormed the trenches. Like the plash of an ice cube dropped in a drink. Dreamlike figures in gray, loaded down with grenades, rifles, and ammo. Their coal-scuttle helmets were painted in camouflage.

Storm troopers. Elite soldiers, heavily armed. They took no prisoners. They only killed.

Two of them. He saw them, but they hadn’t seen him. They swam in and out of view, both carrying pistols ready.

James raised his rifle. They were only a few yards away.

A step sounded. They turned. It was Mason, his back turned. He didn’t see them.

James pulled the trigger.

One German down.

The other turning,

James clearing and cocking,

the pistol clicking,

his own rifle rising,

crack,

the butt of Mason’s gun knocks the German’s gun arm, if James shoots, he could kill Mason,

guard,

aim,

long thrust,

twist,

kill,

kill,

kill.

A mouth flies open,

blue eyes gaze up into his, the surprise of robin’s-egg-blue eyes

as a red throat pours blood down a gray uniform.

He’d shot the first storm trooper in the neck. Storm troopers wore armor. Neck and armpits, vulnerable.

“Thanks, mate,” Mason says.

He takes their pistols, Mason does, one for each. Spoils of war. He straps on a sling of grenades. James takes the gun he hands him, still hot, uncocks it, and sticks it in his belt.

They hear it now: the firing lines, under siege. Of course they are, if storm troops are invading the support line.

Chad and Billy run into their traverse.

“You guys all right?” says Chad Browning.

“Where’s McKendrick?” says Billy Nutley.

Another footstep. A smell, a sound.

“Down!” screams Mason.

The jet of flame arcs across the trench. A storm trooper with a flamethrower. Flammenwerfer. Liquid fire strapped to his back, shooting yards from a hose in his hand.

James crouches, his rifle still in his hands. No time for sights. He aims for the face.

The German’s headless body tumbles forward, still spraying fire. Chad screams.

“Fall back!” comes a cry from somewhere. “Fall back!”

Chad writhes on the duckboards. Mason and Nutley dive on top of him. They beat him to quench the flame. The smell of flesh on fire reminds James of food, of cooking meat.

“We need a stretcher.” Billy is pale and panting.

Mason shakes his head. “Never gonna get one here.”

James slings his rifle behind him. “Put him on my back,” he says. “Get him on me, then you fall back. I’ll be right behind you.”

“I’ll do it,” Billy says.

“So you can both get killed?” says James. “You’re too big. Stay low, and get out of here. Billy, you carry my pack. Cover me, all right?”

“He’s right, Bill,” says Mason. “You can’t do it.”

“Put him on me,” James tells Mason, “and get out of here.”

Chad Browning has stopped his screaming. His clothing is half melted away, half fused to his skin. Mason peels off his trench coat, and they wrap Browning in it, then drape him over James’s back. His limp arms flop over James’s shoulders, and his head bumps against his own. His body is light. He seems to weigh no more than a pack.

“Third Section,” calls Frank Mason, its new, undisputed commander. Other familiar forms materialize from the mist.

“Where’s Alph?” asks Mason. “Where’s Sam?”

Vince Rowan shakes his head. “Grenade.”

No more basset hound. It’ll be Wipers all over again. Suicide.

“Dead?” Mason watches their faces. “Right.” He points northward. “Communication trench, this way. Bill, you first, and Mick, then James. Watch for Germans up top. You next, Vince, and I’ll follow behind.”

Billy Nutley, bayonet ready, makes for their retreat. His large back disappears into the mist. Mick Webber, James and cargo, Vince Rowan, and Frank Mason follow. Back toward the east, toward the fog-veiled sunrise, the German guns roar back to life.





ARES


     Jesse James—March 21, 1918





THE COMMUNICATIONS TRENCHES were a nightmare. Choked in fog, slick with blood. Stretcher-bearers pushing back to field-dressing stations, jostling with reserves running up to the Front. German storm troopers swarmed over the top. British troops with pistols watched the rim and took out anything that moved through the fog. But they couldn’t spot grenade-throwers.