To the Last Man - Jeff Shaara [22]
The great roar began to quiet, then hushed, deafening silence, and around him, a groan rose from the huddled men.
“Up, to the ladders!”
There were no more whispers now, voices rising, the officers moving quickly through the men, lifting them up, prodding them forward, words of encouragement. He straightened himself up, worked the pain out of his legs, felt his gut twist into a hot swirl. The men began to move, shuffling slowly, and now, from somewhere out beyond the trench, a new sound, high and shrill, familiar this time. It was a whistle.
“Up! Over the top! Give them hell!”
The men kept moving, and now he was climbing short steps, rungs of a narrow ladder. He reached the top, stepped through a row of sandbags, followed the man in front of him, men pushing him from behind. He was surprised that he could see, low gray shadows, the first faint light of a misty dawn. He was on flat ground now, thick and wet, could see the shadows of men spread all along in front of the trenches. There were more whistles, and somewhere down the line, close by, a shout, “Go! Advance!”
The men were moving in one wave, and he moved with them, blindly, probing with his boots, the ground suddenly falling away, his boots filling with water. He fought through it, could see he was in a small shell hole, climbed up the other side, stared ahead, the rifle pointing out, the bayonet leading the way. Shouts flew all along the line, meaningless words, some men swarming past him, some falling in the mud, rising again, the wave unbroken. His legs carried him with automatic rhythm, his boots pulling him into the mud, then out again. In front of him, men were slowing, gathering, precut gaps in their own wire, men filing through quickly. He was carried along with them, streams of men, guided through narrow paths. Now they were in the open again, broken, hilly ground, shell holes old and new, churned-up dirt, bursts of awful smell gagging him. He moved faster, clean air, but the smells returned, hard and thick, would not go away. He pushed himself forward, could see now, huge shadows, great fat mounds of barbed wire. There was no order to the coils, wire piled on wire, and he felt a hard tug on his leg, a piece of wire grabbing him. He pulled free, his pants torn, tried to see down in front of him, thought, There is no path. This is German wire!
Men were gathering again, but there were no guides, no easy way through. Men were probing, some stepping high, trying to find a way, and he could see that the barbed wire was a shattered heap, piled around shell holes. He stopped as the men around him stopped, some men pulling at the wire in their clothes. He could hear words, close by, a man giving orders, an officer waving his arms, shouting into the face of another man, “Go to the wireless station! The barbed wire is uncut! The bloody guns didn’t destroy it, just blew it to hell, scattered it all over the damned place! We’ll have to pick our way through. Tell the artillery to be ready in support. This will take some time!”
Men were moving all along the mounds of wire, some pushing into gaps in the great fat coils, then retreating, their paths closed. He followed one man into a gap, the ground an uneven mound of mud and wire, the man shouting, “This way! I found an opening!”
He could see dark flat ground beyond the wire, a clear area, men now gathering behind him, moving as he moved, a mass of soldiers walking, some running, toward the one narrow place in the line. He felt his chest heaving, slipped down into a shell hole, his ankle twisting, more water in his boots. He pulled himself up, the wire behind him, could see that the way was clear now, and he ran again, wide stretch of ground, slowed, thought, How much farther? Few were