Read Online A Girl in Wartime by Maggie Ford - Free Book Online Page A

relief Albert had felt was that everything had been relatively quiet – none of the bombardment he’d been expecting, just the occasional crack of rifle fire that seemed to come from a distant direction. He was knee deep in mud and water. He’d turned to a staff sergeant who’d been busily getting this new intake to move along. ‘How do we stay dry, Staff?’
    The man hadn’t even glanced at him. ‘You don’t. Don’t have time to worry about that – been under bombardment for days. Bit of a lull now. Keep your heads down, cos it’ll probably start up again at some time or other. Them over there’s forever takin’ pot shots at us.’ With that, he’d moved on.
    A young lieutenant who was coming up to Bert from the other direction had explained in a quiet, cultured voice, ‘There are a few dugouts that are relatively dry back there where they lay down the wounded. Some manage to get a wink or two of sleep there when they can.’
    â€˜Where do the others sleep?’
    The man had given a weary smile. ‘When you’re under fire, old chap, you sleep standing up the second it ceases. Cat naps. One hardly realises one’s drifted off. Beneficial in its way, I suppose.’ With that he had turned back the way he’d come.
    Now fully awake, Albert thought of the lieutenant, a cultured voice amid the coarse cursing of working-class men waking up, stiff and sore from lying awkwardly.
    But he thought more of something to eat as he took a swill from his water bottle. How did men eat in this place? Moments later he found out. Someone coming along, keeping his head down, poured a thin gruel into the mess tin he had hurriedly found and held out. It wasn’t half bad and he gobbled it down, feeling a little more satisfied as he stowed away the empty mess tin.
    At that moment, the bowels of hell seemed to break loose as a terrific bombardment opened up from somewhere behind the German lines, which, he realised, were hardly more than fifty yards away.
    Instinctively he ducked and cowed against the running wet walls of the trench he was in, grateful for its cover. Lying beside him was his brother, Ronnie, swearing like the devil. The noise was deafening, yet he could hear himself saying over and over, ‘Keep us safe, dear God, keep us safe!’
    Further along the trench, a deafening explosion sent sandbags and mud up into the air, knocking him off balance. It could have been no more than sixty feet away. A few minutes later, although it seemed an eon, the bombardment ceased as suddenly as it began. Men were running to where the shell had exploded. Bert automatically ran with them, as much as mud and water allowed, Ronnie close behind. Anyone who had been in that spot would have stood no chance.
    What met him was devastation, bodies, parts of bodies, strewn in what was left of this section of trench, half-buried by collapsed walls and sandbags, the wounded crying out in pain, others lying inert, unaware of a leg or an arm gone or dead. He felt his stomach heave.
    â€˜Don’t just stand there, Lance-Corporal!’ bellowed a voice behind him. ‘Get that body out the way so the wounded can be got out, before someone bloody well falls over it! And look lively!’
    Controlling his heaving stomach, Bert glanced to where the sergeant had indicated to see the young lieutenant with the nice accent.
    He looked exactly as if he was asleep, one arm lying casually across his stomach, the other arm across his chest, eyes gently closed. He was stone dead. Blood oozed from where a piece of shrapnel had penetrated his right temple, no doubt lodged deep in his brain. He couldn’t ever have known what had hit him. Bert found tears had begun to cloud his eyes and run down his cheeks. He continued to regard the graceful recline of the dead man, a man that just a few minutes ago had been—
    â€˜Stop gawpin’ like some silly bugger!’ The