At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [121]
A little over an hour later the order was given to advance, and without guns they rose with the other men and charged forward. Like the Ypres Salient with which Joseph was familiar, no-man’s-land was desolate, but drier than the thick Flanders clay. There was the same greasy film of chemical residue from shelling. The earth was strewn with the wreckage of guns and half-sunken vehicles. The same stench of decaying corpses filled the nose and mouth. Drowned men, bloated and inhuman, rose to the surface of water-filled craters when they were disturbed.
They moved forward as fast as possible, struggling in the mud, crouching low to avoid the return fire of the enemy. Star shells lit the sky, rose high and bright, then faded away again. The noise of guns was everywhere, and now and then the dull whoomph as a shell sent earth and mud flying up only to fall, crushing and burying everything it landed on.
There was a surge forward again. There were men running all around Joseph, bent forward, flailing in the mud. Every now and then one would stumble and fall. Sometimes they got up again, sometimes not. Instinct and long habit made him want to go back and see if he could help. Once he stopped and Morel lunged at him, half dragging him forward, all but wrenching his arm out of its socket.
They were far closer to the Germans now. When the flares went up they were clearly visible running and firing. Joseph realized with sudden, stomach-jarring horror that in a few moments he would be fighting for his life. He would have to kill or be killed, and he had no idea how to do it. He was not a soldier, he was only playing at it—wearing the uniform, eating the food, sharing the grief and the hardship, but never doing the fighting, never seeing the purpose for which a soldier lived and died.
Ahead of him a figure stumbled and fell forward into the mud. Automatically Joseph stopped and knelt beside him, almost tripping Morel in the process.
“Are you hurt?” Joseph shouted in French at the man on the ground. He tried to turn the man to see, and realized his chest was torn away.
“Come on!” Morel lunged at him to pull him up.
Joseph tore the rifle out of the dead man’s hands. “Merci, mon brave!” he said briefly. He took the ammunition belt as well, putting it on with clumsy fingers as he stood up again. “Pardon,” he added.
“Get on with it!” Morel yelled at him. “We’ve got more pressing things to do than get shot or bayoneted here. We’ve got to get that son of a bitch back and clear the rest of us!”
Joseph moved forward, following on Morel’s heels. He had grown up in the country. He had no pleasure in shooting, but he knew how. He could understand overwhelmingly the ordinary young soldier’s desire to aim wide rather than at a living man.
The next moment they were almost at the German trenches. The noise was indescribable: gunfire, the scream of shells and the roar of explosions, shrapnel flying—all alternating between darkness and glare.
Suddenly there was a man in front of Joseph. He saw the light on the blade of bayonet and in trying to avoid it he slipped in the mud and staggered forward. It was all that saved him from having his stomach ripped open. Immediately there was someone else in front of him. He saw the high point in the center of the helmet, and lifted his rifle to fire. The man fell, but he did not know if it was he who had shot him, or someone else. There seemed to be gunfire everywhere.
He plowed forward, sliding into the trench and running along it toward the supply line leading backward. He shouted in German at Morel to follow him.
The trench was deeper than he had expected, and drier. It startled him and he felt both ashamed and resentful. It was several minutes before he realized that he needed to change identity. Now he must be German. Being covered in mud was an advantage. He threw the gun away and looked around for a wounded man, any wounded man, to make it look as if he were helping.
Where the devil was Morel? There was no time to go back and look for him.