When Shadows Fall (2 page)

He reversed one of the chairs and sat with his arms resting on the back. “Not that you should care, as you will both be dead, but in a few days we will drive a major assault against your lines, sweeping your remaining forces from the whole of the Somme. The British will be wiped out long before your American friends can arrive to help, and the kaiser’s victory in Europe will be total.”

Adam scoffed and spat on the floor. “The kaiser can stick it up his—”

“Hush, hush.” Schmitz raised a hand. “Do not waste your last breaths on this earth with your English profanities, Lieutenant. You
are
a lieutenant? I see from your uniform. Alas, I outrank you.” He grunted an order to the soldier, who in turn checked the bayonet in the stove. It had gone from black to sullen red.

“Sir,” Timmy pleaded, “don’t hurt us. I just want to go home. I don’t want to fight anymore.”

“Private,” Adam whispered to him, “don’t give the bastard the satisfaction. We’ll get out of this.”

“But how, Lieutenant?”

“Stop that,” Schmitz growled. “Stop whispering. You will address yourselves only to me. Now, for the safety of my company I must know the layout of your lines before I commit my men to attack. And my superiors will reward my efforts fittingly, I believe. So you will comply, you will give me the precise locations of your trenches, guns, and stores. Do this, and I shall have no need to employ Private Müller here in his . . . crude methods.”

“You’ll get no information from us,” Adam retorted. “If you’ve any sense, you’ll run. And run now. The German army is finished. Very soon one million American soldiers will land in France, and every damn jackass Jerry they find they’ll roast like a spitted hog on the fourth of July.”

Schmitz blinked. “Spitted hog? I understand little of what you just said, Lieutenant, for your accent is strange. But it seems to me that you mean to be disagreeable. That is not wise. Let me demonstrate why.”

Müller opened the stove again, and using a strip of airman’s leather, he slid the bayonet from the fire. It was bright red now, a lance of incandescent brilliance, and he flourished it with a reptilian smile as he advanced towards them.

Adam swallowed the hot bile of fear in his throat.

“Lieutenant,” Schmitz intoned gravely, “I must warn you, this course of action will be most unpleasant. I beg you to reconsider. Private Müller is skilled in the art that he performs, and it is,” he shook his head in distaste, “rather horrible, I fear. Please. Will you speak and tell me what I need to know?”

“Lieutenant!” Timmy wailed. “Tell him!”

Müller wielded the bayonet in his gloved hand, watching them with toneless, uncaring eyes.

“Damn it. All right.” Adam grimaced. “Here’s the deal, Schmitz, and it’s the only deal on offer. Let the boy go. Release him back to the British trenches, and I’ll tell you everything.”

“Not good enough, Lieutenant. I make the conditions.”

“You must have a hearing problem, Schmitz. I said it’s the only deal on offer. Now let him go. And then we talk.”

Schmitz pursed his lips a moment, then he turned in his chair and gave a gruff order in German to Müller.

Müller clicked his heels and laid down the bayonet. With deft hands he hauled Timmy’s chair aside and then tipped it forward so that Timmy’s face landed against the table. He began to untie Timmy’s wrists and tossed the binding aside.

“That’s it, Schmitz,” Adam nodded. “At least you’re a man of reason.”

Suddenly Timmy howled. Müller ripped open the belt buckle on his khakis and yanked them below his knees. Timmy tried to struggle free but the trooper placed a brawny paw on his neck to hold him secure. He picked up the bayonet again.

“Lieutenant, you spoke of spitted hogs,” Schmitz said calmly. “Perhaps I can show you a British variety of that dish?”

Timmy’s pale white buttocks were clenched in terror. Müller lowered the bayonet, aiming it into the dark line between his fleshy cheeks. The bayonet’s intense heat shrivelled the hairs on his backside before it even touched, and he screamed.

“Enough!” Adam yelled in panic. “Enough, you Kraut fucker! I said I’ll talk, I’ll talk.”

“Too late, Lieutenant,” Schmitz barked. “You had your chance. Müller! Spit him!”

Müller bent his knees, drew back his elbow, and prepared to drive it home.

He was abruptly thwarted as the house shook under a violent impact and the last surviving window in the kitchen exploded, spewing glass across the room. The bayonet slipped from Müller’s hands as he clasped his eyes and cried out, “
Kommandant, meine Augen
!
”

The shell had struck the front yard. Now came the rumble of distant guns, and Schmitz clambered to his feet, shrieking and cursing. “
Was ist das? Sie sind zu früh
!
”

“
Kommandant, meine Augen
!
” Müller cried again, staggering blindly about.

Schmitz ignored the maimed soldier and kicked through the outer door. A cacophonous bombardment had unleashed itself in the night sky, much to the German commander’s fury. “
Nein! Sie sind zu früh
!
”

Adam was dumped on his side, wrists still bound fast. From the direction of the sound he knew it was German artillery. The German advance had been expected at any day, but evidently had begun a little early for Schmitz’s liking. He tried to wriggle onto his knees. The blind Müller tripped and landed on top of him, the heated bayonet nearby, sizzling through the floorboards.

“Hannigan, get up!” Adam yelled. “Get the hell up and free me.”

The German private’s hands were pressed to his glass-shredded eyes, but even through the impossible pain he reacted to Adam’s voice, trying to clamber up. Adam’s legs were still free, and he moved quickly, clamping one boot on the soldier’s throat and the other behind his neck, choking off his air. “Hannigan, damn you. Cut me free!”

Timmy heaved himself out from under the German’s kicking legs and pulled his trousers up. With a quick glance he took in the situation, and finally instinct took hold. He pulled a knife from the soldier’s belt while Adam held him, and with a couple of swift sawings he separated the rope on Adam’s wrists.

“Thank Christ.” Adam shook off the bounds and stood up. “We’re going to have to run like bedamned, Private. Those are German guns. This must be the big push we’ve been warned about.”

On the floor, Müller was cawing for air. He snatched at them both, and Adam kicked him hard in the side of the head.

“Come on, Timmy.” Adam grabbed the youngster’s arm, and they ran outside. There was no sign of Schmitz or the remaining troops, but the sky was aglow with flares of light. While a stray shell had dug a crater in the yard of the farmhouse, the main assault was being directed over the fields to the British command posts. “Where’s the track? Private—”

“This way, sir. Follow me!”

Another shell fell short and erupted nearby. Adam and Timmy ducked the burst of mud and debris. A cry rang out.

“Wait,” Adam put his hand on Timmy’s shoulder. “Give me a moment.”

“Lieutenant, we can’t!”

Several feet away, close to the shell’s landing, Kommandant Schmitz was lying on his side, moaning in agony. His uniform was burnt and bloody, and he had dropped his pistol. Adam picked it up. Using his boot, he forced Schmitz onto his back then cocked the gun and took aim at the German’s face.

“
Nein,
” Schmitz croaked, “
nein . . .
”

“Yes.” Adam nodded. “Smile for my camera, fucker.”

The single shot rang out over the farmhouse. High overhead, artillery shells painted long, beautiful lights and then blasted mercilessly into the British lines.

In the early morning hours of 21 March 1918, Germany commenced the Spring Offensive, her last unholy assault upon the Allied lines, with a stunning, blazing bombardment nearly forty miles in length. Adam Bowen’s battalion, the Second Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, had been lying in icy trenches for forty days without relief. Rumours had abounded, grim rumours of the Germans’ impending attack, and now with the sky lit up by artillery, all hope of relief was gone. The communication trench connecting the posts of the First and Second Royal Dublin Fusiliers, known as “St. Patrick’s Avenue,” had already been buried as the earthen walls collapsed and men scrambled through the mud for cover.

Timmy Hannigan still hadn’t recovered from their mad dash under the shelling back to the trenches at Zebra Post. He was sitting on the duckboards, white-faced and wheezing, his fingers clutched desperately round his knees. Adam had acquired a fresh Lee-Enfield rifle—a soundless instrument under the rain of shells. He crawled along the soggy floor of the trench towards his platoon and found Timmy first.

“All right, Hannigan?”

Timmy gaped at him, his eyes bulging. “I-I can’t, Lieutenant,” he pleaded. “Please God, sir, get me out of here. I can’t stay.”

The youngster was showing all the signs of falling apart. Adam had seen men crumble in the madness of battle before, minds disintegrating amidst the horror. He’d known Timmy since the outset of the war, four years ago, and early on had developed a brotherly urge to protect him, for Timmy was in many ways just a boy, six years younger than Adam.

“Listen to me, Private,” he said, grabbing Timmy’s arm, “you did well today. Bloody well indeed, and you saved my life. We’ll get out of this scrap yet and go home. Understand? You’ll be back in Tipperary before you know it.”

“We had a fight,” he whimpered.

“What?” Adam couldn’t hear him above the clamour of the battle.

“We had a fight! Me and me mam. She’s a widow, sir, and I have five sisters. I was sick of looking after ’em all and the farm and tending the cows. I thought . . . I thought it would be glory to go and fight the Hun. So I ran away, to Dublin, and lied about my age, and . . . ”

Adam heard only snatches of the blubbered confession, but he nodded. “You’ll be all right, lad. You’ll be—”

Another shell exploded nearby, showering muck into the trench. Timmy cried out and buried his face in his palms.

The German cannonade intensified; shells soared and dipped, and the duckboards became slicked with an oily, bloody paste. It was another desperate attempt to win a few acres of territory—more bellowing of artillery in the night, more men storming across blasted plains to be eaten up by mounted guns, more limbs entangled upon barbed wire, and craters of stagnant water swallowing slithery piles of humanity. Adam had seen it all before.

Then the German assault abruptly ceased. Adam looked for the rest of his platoon. In the eerie silence, he suddenly heard several short whizzing sounds followed by the pop of more shells.

“Gas, gas, gas!” yelled a voice. “Masks, get ’em on, get ’em on!”

Undetectable in the gloom and roiling smoke, the German shells’ potency was released. Invisible and silent, it slid towards the British trenches in a wave.

“Get your damn mask on, Private,” Adam snapped.

Timmy grabbed at a half-rotted trench ladder for support and pulled his mask round his head. Adam quickly snatched at his own, clumsy now with the dirt inside his eyes and ears. The gas was acrid, stabbing, as unceremonious as the angel of death.

Less than thirty feet away, another shell landed neatly into the trench. The blast of wood and muck knocked Adam off his feet. He dropped his mask. In the dark he dug his fingers around frantically, scrabbling through the oozing mud.

“Masks, get ’em on!” someone was shrieking.

A dozen shells within a mile line had unleashed a wave of toxic mustard gas, and many couldn’t react fast enough. It entered their unprotected airways, stripping their throats raw and scorching their lungs. Adam could hear the desperate hacking and spluttering as men fumbled with masks and tried to purge their innards of the poison. Each desperate inhalation merely prolonged the most horrible of deaths.

Gratefully retrieving his mask out of the ground, he pulled it on and took deep gasps, the noise of his own breath like some snarling cave troll. With the rifle strapped to his back he crawled forward ten feet, then twenty, passing bodies along the way, their arms akimbo in the throes of death. Through the miasma of smoke and raining debris he saw the door outside the command shelter and he made for it.

A shape lying across his path made him stop. A young private from the platoon, Adam thought him dead at first, the shrapnel rents in his uniform disgorging black blood. But his eyes were open, his throat trying to find voice. Adam leaned down and clasped his hand. The right side of his chest was opened up, torn red flesh and bones gaping through the khaki. His grip in Adam’s was limp, yet his jaws worked furiously as he mouthed indecipherable words.

“Stretcher bearers!” Adam lifted his mask and pressed it on the other’s mouth. Up and down the trench, there was nothing but chaos and nightmare. The man squeezed his hand; Adam looked back at him and blinked at the violence of that terrible wound.

Another shell struck.

It was too close this time.

Something ricocheted off the side of his skull, spinning his helmet clear. He fell against the crushed walls of a dugout and blood flooded his eyes. He lifted a shaking hand to his head and felt a strip of bared bone at the side of his temple. He tried to rise but his legs went and he collapsed again.