by NightsDawne
Chapter 4: Some Sacrificed All
The Somme, France, 1 July 1916
Dear Father and Mother,
The rain stopped two days ago and the delays are over. We're to take
the offensive to the Germans today. There's mud and noise everywhere.
There's been so many heavy guns about laying hell on the German lines
you can't spit without hitting one. The Irish are all pleased it will
be today, on the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne, that we
finally leave our side and take on the enemy. I try to match their
cheer, but it's hard work after the things I've seen already. I can't
help a feeling that things aren't going to be as easy as everyone
thinks. Sure, the German side has been all but silent the past week,
but I can't shake this ominous sense of tragedy waiting for us up
that hill. Sometimes I can't help thinking that maybe Albert Simon
was right, that this world is too cruel, too bent on its own
destruction. Not that I agree with his way of handling things, trying
to wipe the slate clean by killing everyone off, but this war does
seem to prove his point at times. I hate writing these letters,
knowing that they'll only be read if they're pulled from my pocket
after I've been killed, but I still feel the need to put these
thoughts on paper. I hope they won't be my last. No, I won't be so
pessimistic. There's a reason I'm fighting, and the world doesn't
deserve to be destroyed, whether by a god or by William II. When I
lose heart, all I have to think about is you waiting for me in
America, Chris and the kids at your side. It's you I'm fighting for,
all of you. And for the other boys here wanting to make it home. God
willing, you'll never read this and I'll tell you myself when I make
it back.
All my love,
Halley
Halley slipped the letter in his pocket and shrugged into his heavy pack, then shouldered the heavy barrel of the Stokes, lifting his rifle with his other hand. Bell strode to his side, looking rather cumbersome with mortar bombs attached all over him, two bags of powder, and full equipment.
"Bright clear day for it at least, eh, Brancket?" Bell cast a grim smile to his younger companion.
Halley shifted the weight of the barrel. "Going to be hot this afternoon."
"You think it will take us that long?" The twenty year old captain surveyed the lines of troops hidden in the thick cover of the woods, awaiting their turn at the surge of humanity that would be flung in the face of the Germans. "Less than a thousand yards to the Redoubt."
"A thousand yards at Verdun might as well be a thousand miles."
"Good thing this isn't Verdun then, right?" Bell held his chin up. "You're with the Ulster men now, lad. We may be green, but we're fighters."
"Yes, sir." Halley worked up a dry smile. "I'll do my best."
The roar of the shells suddenly stopped, silence falling so hard Halley's ears rang. The immediate tension was palpable, like a cloud of sweat, nerves, and fear enveloping the British line as time froze. He felt his heart beating in his chest, could imagine every man experiencing the same surreal sensation of timelessness for the few seconds of peace, then the air was pierced by bugles and whistles. The battle had begun.
As if they were racers spurred on by a starting pistol, thousands of men stretched along the line rose from their trenches, tumbling like a wave towards the enemy. Directly in front of him Halley watched as if seeing it from afar the first group rise like monsters from the earth itself, hidden from view by the low road they'd been using as their cover. He wanted to think, wanted to make some sense of what was happening in his mind, but the sheer desire for survival cut through, leaving him with only the discipline of a veteran to keep him from running to find some place of safety, to avoid seeing again life cut off so abruptly and violently. Seven thousand Ulster man, many adorned with orange sashes of patriotism, marched their way forward as if by sheer weight they would mow the Germans over.
Time shook itself and took up its pace again as Halley heard shots firing and the familiar roar of active battle. He sucked in his breath and moved, propelled on by the fervor and enthusiasm of the men he'd known for such a short time but who were relying on him for survival as much as he relied on them. The Ulster men were a force to be reckoned with it soon became apparent. They were hell bent on success and seemed careless of any shells that landed in their midst. Halley started to think his premonitions of doom had been unfounded as the first battalions swept through the cuts in the German barbed wire and fell upon the first line of trenches with such ferocity that they seemed unstoppable.
He tossed the barrel of the Stokes to Bell as they passed the first wounded, confident now that perhaps it wasn't Hell that awaited them and he could make a difference, save lives and limbs. "Carry on, I'll be right with you!"
"What the blazes?" Bell caught the heavy weapon and started loading, faltering for only a moment as Halley threw back his head, calling on his powers with a yell that seemed to come from his soul itself, blue light surrounding the injured rifleman at his feet. ".. What in the hell?"
Halley pulled the healed rifleman up and shoved him forward to cover. "I told you they had their reasons for putting me here. Now are you going to fire that thing or not?!"
Bell blinked, then spun and aimed from his shoulder, carefully picking his point between British uniforms to send a mortar bomb to the trenches ahead of them. A plume of earth and smoke erupted, spelling death for the Germans it struck. "You're an odd one, lad. But keep it up."
Halley yanked his rifle up to fire at the Germans now rushing forward to meet them. "I know, I know." A concussion of impacted earth and explosive knocked him off his feet and the noise of battle was cut off by a steady hum as his ears protested the overwhelming noise and pressure of the shell that had burst only yards away.
Halley rolled to his knees, instinctively abandoning any thoughts of making himself a standing target as he crawled towards the wounded. He looked back over his shoulder to spot Bell on one knee, bringing the Stokes up to return fire on the placement that had sent out the shell, his bearing steady in the chaos that surrounded him. "God protect him," he mumbled before turning his attentions to saving what men were still within his ability to spare from death.
The pitch of battle rose, forcing itself through Halley's focus. The sense of foreboding crept back with the heat of the now glaring sun. Forced to rest as his powers fatigued him, Halley took shelter in a crater formed by a shell to confront it and shake it if he could. The battle sounded wrong. He had suspected far more than his less experienced companions that the Germans weren't as beaten down by the shelling as had been thought. In Verdun he'd endured five months of bombardment and hadn't counted on a week's worth of heavy guns to drive out a tenacious foe. It was too concentrated, though. Too much right in the middle of the 36th division. He crept to the edge of the crater, pulling out his binoculars. His heart sank as the full realization hit him, a realization he knew most of the other soldiers hadn't come to yet. They were ahead of the line. Only the Ulsters had thrust this far and the holes they'd broken in the first line of German trenches were slowly filling, preventing the flanking divisions from catching up. They'd be damned going back, but he didn't see that as a likelihood anyhow with the spirit of the brave men fighting their way forward even now. He broke from his cover, crawling through the rapidly disintegrating battlefield. He had to find Bell.
He spotted the fearless captain, the Stokes abandoned as Bell faced the very teeth of death to aid his battalion, crawling to within throwing range to lob mortar bombs into the fierce German trench that now blocked the rush of the infantry. Small plumes of dirt showered him from near bullets, but he ignored the rifle fire with determined valor to give his men the chance to advance without being cut down by it themselves. Only when the last of his mortars had been thrown did he move back to a position where he could employ his rifle to cover the rush to take the trench.
Halley crawled to his side. "Captain, we're ahead of the line. We're going to be cut off."
Bell glanced to the side as he reloaded his rifle. "Then there's only one choice, isn't there, lad. We take that hill, and we hold it like the men we are. They'll catch up to us, but our orders are to take the Redoubt."
Halley absorbed Bell's calm and resolution, knowing it came not from inexperience with battle, but from pure guts. "Yes, sir. We take the Redoubt." He lifted his rifle, resolution conquering fear in the presence of the Irishman from Liverpool as he joined in to pick off German infantry that dared to rush against their men. The Ulster men, as if moved by the hand of God, pushed past the trench, their numbers lessened, but still fueled by an inner fire he'd seldom seen on either side of the war. If they'd been underestimated for their spirit and courage in the face of fire, they were laying aside that misconception now. The overload of equipment was being abandoned in the forward press, strewn amongst the dead and wounded.
Halley kept pace with Bell as they advanced with the infantry, the battle becoming a blur of loading, shooting, and reloading. They moved by inches under a sun that glared as if angered by the carnage it was witness to, but they moved. Fallen comrades became a source for resupply of ammunition, but Bell never wavered, his courage enough to spread a cool resolution throughout the men while chaos reigned around them. By now it had become clear to all that there was no retreat, the German artillery placements turning No Man's Land into a cratered otherworldly landscape that would be a deathtrap to any who dared to seek refuge there.
Shouts of "No surrender!" echoed through the Irish as they breached the first defenses of Schwaben Redoubt. Halley spun to find himself in the midst of the most heated fighting yet, close in and bloody. He thrust his bayonet into the neck of a German, then turned to defend against the next one before the body even fell. He couldn't tell if he fought for an hour or mere minutes before a rumble of victory ran through the young men of the 36th who'd made the hill. It took him several seconds of staring around him dumbly to realize they'd taken their objective and the Redoubt was now under British control.
"Hold your cheering, men!" Bell's voice rang out. "We've got to hold it! The other lads will be along, but we're the stuff for now! Look to your arms!"
As if to underscore the importance of Bell's warning the cries of wounded silenced the cheers as machine gun fire raked into the band of men who held the hill. Halley spun, seeing bodies fall, and looked beyond them to Theipval, the small village the 32nd Division had been assigned to wrest from German control. The enemy clearly still had their hold there and were now turning the full force of their weaponry on the lone victors. To every side men dove for foxholes and sandbags to stave off the onslaught, pinned down and unable to keep their vigilance against the German infantry counterattack that pressed up to again join the fight. Triumph began to melt into confusion and exhaustion. Shells from the Germans rained down behind them, shells from the British side joining the cacophony from ahead. There was nowhere to turn without meeting the fury of war.
Halley crawled to the pile of bodies where the guns of Theipval had taken their bite from the Ulster men. He was driven on by mercy and the knowledge that reinforcements wouldn't be coming for a long time if they managed to force their way past the vicious fire at all. Any man he could put back in the fight gave them a few precious moments more to hold out in the desperate battle to hold their hard-won ground. He was already weak from his powers used between the German trench lines, but he had no choice.
He moved first to those whose groans and cries gave testament to their remaining life, his mind becoming numb behind the dull throb of pain that came with the overexertion of his healing skills. Not far off he could still hear Bell's voice as the intrepid captain rallied confused and shaken boys whose officers had been lost, giving them courage and some semblance of structure to their resistance. He focused on the strong voice of Bell, though he couldn't bother to make out the words. It was all he could do to keep the cover of bodies between himself and the machine guns, use his gifts, and send the revived and healed men crawling to safer positions.
A burst of fire striking close caused him to flatten against the ground. In sheer instinct he grabbed the nearest body and rolled it to hide behind, the dead soldier coming to rest face to face with Halley. His throat, already tight from dust and smoke, seemed to close completely as he stared into the green lifeless eyes of Private Farlane, the cheerful smile forever gone, replaced by a death mask of surprise and pleading. Halley's breath escaped him in a sob. "No, Farlane. You're just a kid," he choked. He dropped his head against Farlane's bullet-riddled chest, the overwhelming hopelessness kindled by his waking premonition leaving him empty of anything beyond fear, sorrow, and guilt.
Halley... Halley... don't give up... The familiar and comforting voice of his mother, thousands of miles away, echoed through Halley's mind. The distance between them could be breached by their love and the bond of their powers, but her soft and loving tone was what shook him back to reality, so out of place in this desperate field of death and destruction.
Mother, I can't do anything. They die anyway. They're just kids, like me. I'm so tired.
Don't give up. You make a difference. If you save one, you've made a difference. Remember what you're fighting for and don't give up.
Halley closed his eyes, forcing the faces of his dead companion away with every ounce of strength he had to picture his mother's face, the compassion for others that shone in her eyes even when she herself was in pain. I'll do my best, mother. He gently pushed Farlane onto his back, reaching up to close his eyes before making his way back to his comrades.
From their vantage on the hill he could see both the horror of their situation and the proof of the 36th Division's valor. Everywhere the British forces had been cut down like fodder for the German artillery that had waited out the barrage of British guns. The Germans seemed poised to make in one day what had been accomplished in months of fierce battle at Verdun upon the fields of the Somme, the river itself tinged brackish by blood and dirt thrown up from the shelling. Those battalions that braved their way into the force of the German defenses to aid the struggling 36th only became losses themselves. If Rawlinson had any sense he'd soon give up on risking more forces to save them, and as the day wore on there would be less reason to do so as the survivors became fewer in number and their grip on the Redoubt became more perilous. They were penned in on all sides and no reinforcements would arrive that day. Halley dropped behind a wall of sandbags, taking the place of a slumped soldier and picking up his rifle. The Ulster men refused to give up, refused to surrender what so many of their division had already given their lives for, and neither would he.
Only as the relentless heat of the day gave way to evening and the shelling slowed to a point where one could hear each burst did Halley slow his pace of fighting and healing. His powers were all but gone and without rest he would pass out. All around were piles of bodies and huddled groups of injured and shaken soldiers. He searched for more ammunition, but the dead had already been scavenged. Neither his powers nor the brave spirit of the men on the hill had been enough. Knots filled his empty stomach as he realized they would have to retreat or die.
Already small packs of men had started the dangerous retreat over the ground they'd struggled that morning to fight their way across. Those who had the strength supported those who didn't or were wounded. Halley fought back tears and wrapped his arm around a wounded man, looking around for Bell as he aided the young private through the dangerous twilight, but his captain was nowhere to be seen. Like staggering ghosts the survivors made their silent trek, the groans and cries of those they passed who were beyond making the journey to safety the only voices to be heard. Each cut like a knife into Halley, another mark of failure.
As he picked his way towards the first line of trenches that had given them a sense of optimism with their early victory, Halley looked up to see the faces of the troops from York, stopped at the trenches, unable to have made it far enough to relieve the embattled men on the Redoubt. The shock in their faces reflected the horror of the men who wound silently past them, aged in one day from boys to old men, youth stolen from even the living by the cruel fates of war. Halley lacked the strength to either rail against them for failing to save them or give them encouragement for having tried so hard. He dropped his gaze once more and focused on his only task that he could accomplish, to put one foot in front of the other and guide his companion over the bloody field. The macabre popping of machine gun fire from the gaps in the barbed wire meant nothing to him other than more dead bodies to litter the landscape. Even survival was beyond his thoughts at this point.
Like insects they crept back to the safety of their holes and collapsed into the trenches, the mud a welcome relief as the tormented and ragged survivors of the battle curled against each other for comfort and reassurance that they were not alone in living through the hell of the disastrous battle. Halley lowered his companion against the wall of the trench and looked up at the passing harrowed faces, trying to recognize someone who could give him word of Bell. He reached out and gripped the boot of another fusilier. "Captain Bell. Did he make it back?"
The man looked down slowly as if in a trance, his ashen face streaked with filth. "Dead. Took it up on the hill. God have mercy," the man mumbled, then continued on his way.
Halley felt his hand fall limp and looked down at it, absorbed in his palm as if it could keep the fact from sinking into his mind that the man he'd come to look to as friend and hero in a few short hours of struggle was gone. Like an unrelenting force it struck home and he curled into a tiny ball in the mud, his fatigued body shuddering with sobs.