Free All I Have to Give by Mary Wood

supposed to be happening! The barrage of bombs should have given them an easy walk
across. ‘Take all you can’ had been the order. Some of the packs loaded onto the lads’ backs must weigh around fifty pounds. ‘And walk,’ they’d been told.
‘Conserve your energy.’
It was madness, bloody madness.
His own bloody pack weighed a ton! Sometimes he questioned the mentality of his superiors, for they could have made sure
they’d gained ground and a new strategic point, and then sent parties back for their supplies.
    ‘Keep your heads low, lads. Keep pushing forward.’ Enemy fire whizzed past him as he shouted this.
Please, God, don’t let me name be on a bullet today!
    An order of ‘Fire at will’ came to him. Looking to the east and west, he saw very few young men still on their feet, but to those that were he shouted, ‘Keep firing. It may
just stop the bastards from raising their ’eads. And keep close to me.’
    The words had hardly died when a body catapulted into the air and landed in front of him, tripping him up. His hand squelched into the pulp of the body’s chest as he tried to pull himself
up. Sickened, he screamed, ‘You fucking bastards – I’ll kill the lot of you.’ But his words were lost in another explosion to the left of him.
    Stones and clods of mud hit him, bruising and cutting his skin. Then a bigger object hit his shoulder, sending him off-balance again. It landed at his feet. He stared at the hideous sight of a
boot with a leg that had a shattered bone, hanging sinews and a bulging muscle protruding from it as though it was vomiting them out of its severed end. His tears mingled with his snot as he felt
for his ammunition.
    Reloading his rifle, he shook his head to try and clear the muffled effect the last explosion had had on his hearing – not that he wanted to hear the screams or the cries for help from his
comrades, but not doing so made him feel as though the world had deserted him, as a lonely feeling took him.
    Ready to battle again, he charged forward. There were lads with him, but he couldn’t say how many or who they were. As he squinted through the fog of smoke and dust, what he saw made his
heart sink into his boots.
Christ, the barbed-wire barrier is still intact!
The barrage of bombs hadn’t cut through it. They were doomed.
    A bugle sounding the retreat came through the fog in his head. Would he get back to the trench alive? His eyes seared with pain as they took in the sight of a field of bodies. His feet squelched
in a river of blood.
    Looking towards the German trenches, he focused on where most of the fire had come from. A machine-gun barrel protruded from a gap in the sandbag wall, but to the right of it he spotted a gaping
hole. A bomb must have had a direct hit. ‘Get rid of your packs and follow me,’ he said to those remaining.
    Rolling under the twisted wire, he had to tug himself free more than once, ripping his grey coat to shreds. ‘Come on – do it. We have to take that machine gun out.’ As he
spoke, the gun swung towards them. ‘Lay low, lads.’
    But the gun swung away and fired into a group of retreating soldiers. The Germans must not have seen him and his men.
    They were at the sandbag wall now. Looking through the hole, Albert could see no movement and not a German in sight. Motioning to his men, he scrambled through, rolling down and clambering up
the other side. They were behind the German lines!
    In front of them was a scene not unlike the one he’d left: bodies in hideous positions strewn along the bottom of the trench, and the backs of a dozen or so German soldiers intent on
shooting ahead at the retreating Allied forces. Still on their bellies, and above and behind the enemy, Albert knew they had to take them out in one assault, if any of them were to get back to
their own trench. ‘Right, lads, get your Mills bombs at the ready. When I say “go”, all get up together, pull the pins and throw and run like hell.