Free The Penguin Book of First World War Stories by None, Anne-Marie Einhaus Page A

a seat,’ the first offered, waving towards a third chair. ‘Morris got it today. Killed outright. That bloody sniper again.’
    â€˜He’s somewhere out there, just about opposite us,’ the second said grimly. ‘One of those blighters the other day claimed he’d got forty-three for sure.’
    â€˜I can believe it,’ Joseph answered, accepting the seat. He knew better than most what the casualties were. It was his job to comfort the terrified, the dying, to carry stretchers, often to write letters to the bereaved. Sometimes he thought it was harder than actually fighting, but he refused to stay back in the comparative safety of the field hospitals and depots. This was where he was most needed.
    â€˜Thought about setting up a trench raid,’ the major said slowly, weighing his words and looking at Joseph. ‘Good for morale. Make it seem as if we were actually doing something. But our chances of getting the blighter are pretty small. Only lose a lot of men for nothing. Feel even worse afterwards.’
    The captain did not add anything. They all knew morale was sinking. Losses were high, the news bad. Word of terrible slaughter seeped through from the Somme and Verdun and all along the line right to the sea. Physical hardship took its toll, the dirt, the cold, and the alternation between boredom and terror. The winter of 1916 lay ahead.
    â€˜Cigarette?’ The major held out his pack to Joseph.
    â€˜No thanks,’ Joseph declined with a smile. ‘Got any tea going?’
    They poured him a mugful, strong and bitter, but hot. He drank it, and half an hour later made his way forward to the open air again and the travel trench. A star shell exploded high and bright. Automatically he ducked, keeping his head below the rim. They were about four feet deep, and in order not to provide a target, a man had to move in a half-crouch. Therewas a rattle of machine-gun fire out ahead and, closer to, a thud as a rat was dislodged and fell into the mud beside the duckboards.
    Other men were moving about close to him. The normal order of things was reversed here. Nothing much happened during the day. Trench repair work was done, munitions shifted, weapons cleaned, a little rest taken. Most of the activity was at night, most of the death.
    â€˜â€™Lo, Chaplain,’ a voice whispered in the dark. ‘Say a prayer we get that bloody sniper, will you?’
    â€˜Maybe God’s a Jerry?’ someone suggested in the dark.
    â€˜Don’t be stupid!’ a third retorted derisively. ‘Everyone knows God’s an Englishman! 1 Didn’t they teach you nothing at school?’
    There was a burst of laughter. Joseph joined in. He promised to offer up the appropriate prayers and moved on forward. He had known many of the men all his life. They came from the same Northumbrian town as he did, or the surrounding villages. They had gone to school together, nicked apples from the same trees, fished in the same rivers, and walked the same lanes.
    It was a little after six when he reached the firing trench beyond whose sandbag parapet lay no man’s land with its four or five hundred yards of mud, barbed wire, and shell holes. Half a dozen burned tree stumps looked in the sudden flares like men. Those grey wraiths could be fog, or gas.
    Funny that in summer this blood- and horror-soaked soil could still bloom with honeysuckle, forget-me-nots, and wild larkspur, and most of all with poppies. You would think nothing would ever grow there again.
    More star shells went up, lighting the ground, the jagged scars of the trenches black, the men on the fire steps with rifles on their shoulders illuminated for a few, blinding moments. Sniper shots rang out.
    Joseph stood still. He knew the terror of the night watch out beyond the parapet, crawling around in the mud. Some of them would be at the head of saps out from the trench, most would be in shell holes, surrounded by heavy barricades of