“Man, that’s terrible. Was it a sniper?” enquired Ed.
“No. What the Germans did for a while was drop heavy pointed bolts from planes over our lines. Basically there was no warning and if you were hit by one that was generally that. Normally people were not killed straight away. It might enter through your shoulder and exit from your stomach or whatever, causing an agonising death over days or weeks with infection. Eddie was lucky, it went through his helmet, down through his neck, right through his body. Unbelievable! I became a man that day. How I wish I never had. No more innocence or hope. Everything from then onwards was survival. Nothing more and nothing less,” said Donald, his words tearing into the description of events like metal tore into innocent flesh and bone.
“Christ, I don’t think I would even survive that,” commented Ed, reflecting with surprise at how quickly he had adapted from being a violent killer hound to chatting with a nineteen year old WW1 veteran. By now they had proceeded out of sight of the original entrance and some way into the tunnel system.
“Mate, that was just the beginning. That was nothing. Believe me. With all that blood and guts I’m sure war did a lot more for vegetarianism than any vegan activist. There was something utterly terrifying about every moment and always a new grizzly bloodied sight to greet you around every corner. My first job was laying barbed wire fences in no-mans land in the depth of night. It was something else, crawling into a pitch black hornet’s nest of potentially vicious machine gun fire. Three or four of us would slither out into the night, down into pot holes and craters, over decaying dead bodies, through mud and slime being as silent as possible. Then we would twist those metal cork screw posts into the ground and begin joining them all up with our bundles of barbed wire. It was crap in comparison to the Germans. Their barbed wire was so much thicker and nastier. I should know, I got caught on it a couple of times. If you were lucky you would get back to your trenches without being spotted by the enemy but if not, a long night of ducking into bomb holes to avoid the machine guns was on the cards. They used to call us the rabbits; always running helplessly from a gun. Anyway, I don’t want to bore you with all this”
“No, please continue. It’s fascinating,” replied Ed as the couple got to an intersection in the maze. Both options looked identical but Donald knew exactly which way to go. He ushered Ed down one of the tunnels and was about to continue when someone came from the other direction. As he came closer, Ed could see it was a Roman centurion.
“Hi, Don,” uttered the Roman as the three met in the tunnel.
“Hi, Frank. This is Ed.”
“Hi, Ed, it’s good to meet someone from more recent times.”
“Well it’s nice to meet a Roman centurion, Frank. Must have been quite a period to have lived through,” replied Ed, curious as to the modern looking flat top haircut and small tattoo on his ear.
“Well I’m really from
Aldershot
and I died in 1990; a tragic accident in a fancy dress firework display. How I wish I had gone in normal clothes. I was a dreary tax inspector. Still interested?” replied Frank with honest irony.
“Well, maybe not, but
Aldershot
’s okay,” replied Ed before Donald added,
“I’ve left the net down there so keep your eyes peeled, Frank. Good that we saved this one.”
“All right. I’ll see you back there. There’s going to be a knees-up later apparently.”
“Oh good, see you there,” replied Donald as they went their separate ways.
“I thought people kept themselves to themselves in here,” queried Ed.
“Not really. I’ve heard some of the other portals are like that. We like a bit of a vibe in here. That’s why I stayed. I had a few uninspiring transiences but when I landed here then it was enough for me. I never saw those Tumpleberries though.”
“Anyway, do you remember my grandfather? His name was Albert Tindall,” queried Ed.
“Albert Tindall, Christ! Yes, I do remember him. A very hard bastard with a real reputation; a real fighter by all accounts.”
“Really, old grandpa? He was harmless later in life.”
“I assume that he survived the war then?”
“Physically, but not mentally. He was always slightly absent up top. Spent his whole life waking up every night drenched in sweat, shouting. Other than that he had a hard life as well. He didn’t get looked after by the government when he got back. He had been wounded in the lower back, really limiting his work options. However, they refused to be liable in any way whatsoever and their medical team never acknowledged the severity of the injury, even though he had more than ten independent assessments identifying him as partially disabled. He got very disillusioned and sorrowful. He had such strong beliefs at the start of the war about fighting the good fight and rule Britannia but it all really came to bite him in the face.”
“That’s terrible. I have heard other stories along those lines. If those politicians knew what we had gone through for king and country they would certainly have thought again. Truth is that they are spineless fuckers that would never be seen on a battlefield. It’s all a con really. When I joined up as a seventeen-year old what could I possibly have known about politics, philosophy of life or anything meaningful regarding why wars should or shouldn’t be fought or why it should involve me? In retrospect that war was down to a load of posturing wankers playing brinksmanship with other people’s lives and destinies. It’s a crime of inadequacy on every level.”
“I know. That’s why he wanted to come out at the end of his life and tell the real story for a TV documentary. The program was called ‘
What we gave and the price it cost and the lies that deceived us’
. It caused a lot of resentment amongst the modern armed forces who it transpired were being treated in a very similar way.”
“Frankly, I’m glad I died, especially after I ended up here. I very much doubt if I could have lived a happy life out there after all I saw and experienced. What I would have given to be seriously injured and sent home. I thought I had bought that ticket when I got shot in no-man’s land on a raid. We moved on from barbed wire duty to kidnapping. We used to sneak over at night and kidnap German soldiers from their trenches. It was terrifying. Stealthy crawling in the darkness and then jump in and grab one of them, knock them out and carry them back for interrogation. Anyway, one night we had got this little guy. My mate Danny smacked him over the head and we started to drag him back whilst the others tried to get some others. Unfortunately he hadn’t hit him hard enough and he came round, grabbing his pistol and shooting me through my shoulder. It really fucking hurt. We dropped him down and Danny shot him at point blank range. Of course, this woke the whole fucking German army. The bright night flares went off and there we were, smack bang in the middle of no-mans land illuminated like a couple of ducks in the fairground. Immediately the machine guns started to spit their murderous vermin into the night. You could hear the bullets whizzing by like super speedy fireworks. Dan got hit straight away. I just saw his head explode, literally explode as I dived into a bomb crater about the size of a hot air balloon, rolling down into the mud and stench. The first flare faded and then another one went up, then another. The bullets darted off the top ridge of the crater, spraying dirt, stones and bits of metal into the hole. I put my head down, covered it over with my metal helmet and prayed like a goodun. They kept rattling away for over an hour. Then our boys whipped a few artillery shells over in that direction and hey presto, no more flares and no more gun fire. I just had to hold out there for a bit and then try and crawl back to the British lines. It was horrendous in there though. Bits of body, legs, arms, torsos, all severed and at various stages of decomposition. By comparison the corpses that had remained reasonably intact were pretty well outnumbered. I was so pleased the flares stopped illuminating the grizzly horror. I think the worst moment was a rat crawling out of the stomach of one of the dead. Disgusting little rodent covered in blood, all over its body, face and whiskers. I threw up right then and there, and shot that little fucker with my pistol. I knew I couldn’t die in that spot. I had to get out of that hole.”
“And did you?”
“Yes. I tell you though one thing drove me on besides my desire to escape the macabre nightmare. It was the idea of getting back and being in hospital with lots of young nurses mollycoddling me.”
“I can see that would have been an incentive, especially in the circumstances.”
“You’re not wrong. I crawled back after a few hours, even though I was in agonising pain and bleeding a lot. Then after yelling the password, ‘Pack of Marlborough’, I was back with the boys and being whisked to hospital. It was overwhelming. A bed and sheets. No mud. A beautiful old chateau converted into a medical facility. Food on plates and women, lovely women. Those nurses did it for me. Man, once I was there I couldn’t stop wanking. Even the old matron looked attractive after everything I had been through. If the bed had had a hole, then I would have fanaticised about that as well.”
“Well at least you wouldn’t have made it pregnant,” replied Ed ironically.
“Yeah, it wasn’t long till I was back at the front though, those fucking muddy trenches. Rats, worms and lice, that’s all that lived there. Even the trees and foliage bailed on us. Sleeping was another problem. It was virtually impossible in full uniform and with all that noise, unless you collapsed from exhaustion of course. There were positive aspects though; you didn’t have to wake up or get dressed in the morning.”
“I can’t imagine having to endure that. Even without the barbaric killing and murder it would have been hell. How did you finally get killed?”
“You know what, it’s fucking ridiculous. I had been over the top five times, penetrated into the German lines three times and spent a massive amount of time in the thick of it right at the front. As time went on I became more fearless, dehumanised and bitterly vengeful. I stopped being a person. Morality and caring became completely suspended for me. Hardly surprising when you are in a situation where two groups treat each other without mercy or compassion. Every event hardened me more and made me even more of an emotionless warrior. It started to get out of hand. Once on an advance we overran the German lines and trenches in a small sector. I stormed along the trench alone, ahead of everyone, bayoneting the enemy one by one without even thinking twice. Then I turned around a corner into a small recess in the trench system where Germans would sit and rest.
“There was a solitary German sitting there, motionless, his hands down beside him, completely resigned. I held out my bayonet towards him, about six inches from his face and shouted at him with as much spitting, screaming, frothing, ugly anger that I could muster. ‘Reach for your gun, you greasy cunt, fucking reach for it’. He looked unmoved and didn’t react immediately. After a short while he reached his right hand into his pocket. I instantaneously sank the bayonet into his head, between his eyes without even flinching. As it went in they bulged and became bloodshot before blood started flowing from them like tears of blood. I stuck my muddy boot in his face and pulled out the bayonet, wiping both sides of it on his small cloth hat. It fell from his head forwards onto my leg and into his lap. Then I reached down and realised he was not clutching a gun but instead had a picture of his wife and beautiful little daughter that he wanted to show me. I was crushed. In that moment I remembered the world I had forgotten. Trees and lawns, dogs and cats, birds peacefully nesting, colour, women, beer and happiness, sport and food, recreation, simplicity and love.”
“Christ, how did that make you feel?”
“Dead really. I knew there was nothing of me left. I had succumbed to the situation and had let the evil penetrate into my soul. My outer world had crumpled and it had led to a complete moral collapse. Everyone acted as vulgar and as cruel as one could imagine. From the various gas and fire weapons to bolts and bullets from the sky and bomb barrages that could last for weeks. It was an insane circus of horrors. I was completely confused. Soon we were pushed back by a fierce German counter attack and found ourselves back where we started. All that after a week’s fighting and God knows how many deaths. It was appalling. The scary thing was that I got used to doing all this stuff as a matter of course but could never honestly say ‘why?’ It just was not an option. You either did it and stood a chance of survival or didn’t do it and got shot by your own officers. Numerous times I saw that. I remember Johnny Briggs, a stocky little fella from Lewisham who had been a professional rugby player. He just sat in tears shivering in the trench when the whistle blew one morning, tears flooding from his eyes. The sergeant was adamant he must go over the top but he just sat there crying. I was thinking he would just leave him but he raised his pistol and shot him clean in the head, jolting his body violently backwards into the trench wall and down onto the muddy slatted wooden floor. I was already halfway up the ladder out of the trench and he looked over at me as if to say, ‘so fucking what?’ I was out of there and skipping over dead bodies like an energetic spring bunny before you could say ‘criminal bastard’. It was horrendous. That bastard was killed some days later in a gas attack. I watched him struggle with his gas mask and didn’t forward any help, even as he came towards me looking for mercy. The heavy yellow gas crept over the edge of the trench like a lumbering monster and engulfed him, causing him to cough and splutter with panic. I felt happy to know that he would die painfully over a few days, drowning from the fluid in his lungs. Fucker. How I had lost my humanity though on every level. I had decided I had had enough.”