Bloodline (3 page)

The solider struggled to break Harker’s grip, but try as he might, he could not. He flailed desperately.

The captain’s face contorted into an expression of utter hatred. The German let out a squeal of terror, but the sound was cut short by a sick crack. The soldier went limp. Harker must have crushed the bones in his neck.

When the man was still, Harker gave a shudder. Then he dragged the soldier’s lifeless body to a dark recess of the trench.

I blinked once. Twice. Had I really witnessed this incredible display of strength? It seemed wholly unreal and Harker the creature of another world.

“Lieutenant!” Jenkins yelled from our position. “We have to hold ’em!”

I raced back to the fire step to rejoin Jenkins in battle.

When the all clear was finally given, I helped transport the corpses of our fallen enemy back into no-man’s-land. My limbs have little strength left after the effort.

German blood now adorns the walls of our trench—a grim reminder that we must remain ever vigilant, ever ready to face the enemy. With Captain Harker to guide us, I have no doubt that we shall remain strong.

5TH
A
UGUST 1916

Early this morning, despite our hunger and fatigue, Captain Harker ordered the remains of our division to assemble. We stood there, shivering in the cold pre-dawn.

“I wonder what he wants at this time of the morning?” Jenkins asked. He searched my face for a hint of Harker’s motive.

I shrugged, having no idea what Harker wanted.

“Captain’s coming!” Sergeant O’Reilly announced. We all straightened our backs and stood to attention.

Harker strode down the trench, his gaze strafing each and every man like artillery fire. We all stiffened, sensing his obvious rage.

“Last night the trench was breached!” he barked. “The enemy reached our door while we slept peacefully on.” He paused, drawing a steadying breath to control his temper. “We
cannot
afford to fall into a stupor!
You
are all that stands between your families and hell, and yet some of you shuffle around these trenches like ghosts—as though you are already dead and there is nothing left to fight for! Are you going to let the enemy march right over you and on to England, to murder your wives and butcher your children?”

Some of the men shuffled uncomfortably. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of indignation on their behalf. In the short time I’d been here, I’d witnessed the daily hardships they faced and been amazed by their resilience. Did they not bristle with the same sense of injustice?

Harker paused. “Private Smith was found asleep at his post last night.”

The allegation was rich with menace. It took me by surprise. Nearby, the colour drained from Private Smith’s face.

“His negligence is what let the enemy slip into our midst,” Harker snarled. “They might have killed every one of you.”

Smith began to sputter an explanation. “But—but Captain, I—”

“O’Reilly! Jenkins!” Harker barked, cutting him off.

The sergeant and corporal stepped hesitantly forward. “Yes, sir?” O’Reilly responded.

“Take Smith to that wagon over there.” Harker pointed over the top of the trench to an overturned wagon in no-man’s-land. “Tie him to one of the wheels.”

I heard a muted gasp from the men. Jenkins and O’Reilly looked at each other, their faces rigid with disbelief.

“But there is no protection there. He’ll be blown to bits!” I exclaimed.

The men turned fearful gazes on me as I questioned Harker’s decision.

Slowly, the captain faced me. The sun was beginning to rise over the horizon behind him, and he seemed ringed with fire. “The enemy raiding party was not spotted until it had reached the barbed wire,” he told me, his voice calm and cold. “Smith’s forty winks might have cost us forty lives.”

I could not deny it. Harker was right. Yet I did not know how he could order such a thing. Smith was not yet twenty, and a father-to-be.

“No, sir!” Smith shouted as Jenkins and O’Reilly approached him. “I won’t do it again, sir. I promise!” He cowered as Jenkins reluctantly reached out to take his arm. O’Reilly grasped the
other, and Smith tried to pull away. “No!” he cried, his eyes frenzied. This time his words came as a shriek.

Harker said nothing.

“Please!”
Smith cried the word again and again, his screams growing wilder as Jenkins and O’Reilly hauled him up one of the ladders and over the top of the trench.

The three men stumbled over the uneven soil toward the wagon. Smith kicked and flailed. Jenkins and O’Reilly were forced to drag him.

Harker ordered us all to watch while Jenkins and O’Reilly tied Smith at wrist and ankle, spread-eagled on the cartwheel like a martyred saint.

“That is what happens to fools,” he growled. “And anyone thinking of untying that rope will find himself in similar circumstances.” Then he strode away to the dark seclusion of his quarters.

When they’d finished, Jenkins and O’Reilly scurried back to the trench, leaving Smith alone and helpless in the rising dawn light.

“Harker,” Jenkins spat.

“What’s that? You often say you’d follow Captain Harker to hell if he asked you,” O’Reilly grunted.

“Yes. But I didn’t think he’d make me one of his demons,” the corporal replied bitterly.

Journal of
Mary Seward

30TH
A
UGUST 1916

I have read only a small portion of Lieutenant Shaw’s journal and I no longer wonder at the horrors that addle his mind. The cruelties he has witnessed and the conduct of his commander, Captain Harker, are so unspeakable as to drive even the sanest of men insensible. Indeed, it is all described so vividly that I fear I shall see Harker’s face in my nightmares.

I want to close this journal forever. I wish to burn it so Lieutenant Shaw need never look upon its terrible passages again.

Still, I have not yet found a way to reach him. To show him that the horrors of war are behind him and that he is safe again. I do not want to, but I must read on. I only wonder what terrors await me.

War Journal of
Lieutenant John Shaw

7TH
A
UGUST 1916

Harker went on another of his solitary raids last night. The men busied themselves once he had left, brewing tea or writing home. Trying to distract themselves, I suppose. But I know that like me, they were keeping one ear pricked for the sickening screams that would inevitably drift back from the enemy trenches. Screams the likes of which I have not heard—unless Harker is involved in battle.

As dawn neared and the other men slept, I stood alone in the moonlight awaiting Harker’s return. I hoped to speak to him about Private Smith. Surely he had served his penalty and could be brought back into
the trench before it was too late.

I heard a rustling above me and looked up with a start. The silhouette of Captain Harker towered on the brink of the trench. He stood there, in perfect stillness, his greatcoat flapping at his legs. He did not see me.

I strained to glimpse his face. It was dark and shiny in the moonlight. I squinted, then realised with horror that it was stained with thick red blood.

Harker licked his lips clean of the stuff and gave a satisfied sigh.

My own blood chilled at the sight. What kind of perversion was this?

As the sun began to redden the horizon, Harker jumped down into the trench. He landed easily, nearly floating to the duckboards—as if it were a three-foot drop rather than an eight-foot one. He turned and strode away toward his quarters.

For the first time, a hideous thought entered my mind: Captain Harker, so respected, so revered in battle, actually took a sick pleasure in his killing.

If that were true, we were in the command of a madman.

L
ATER

Jenkins came to tell me that they’d brought Smith down.

I jerked my head up incredulously. “You mean he’s survived?”

“No. But his widow will be able to make a decent burial,” Jenkins informed me flatly.

The news hit me hard. I wanted to weep. Because Smith
was dead—because his unborn child was already orphaned—and because my hope that he’d survived was so childish, so senseless.

“I’ve been wonderin’ what it was that got him,” Jenkins continued. “He had no wounds—none that I could see. But his colour—it was beyond pale. And the look on his face was utter terror. Like he’d seen the face of the devil himself.”

I turned away, wondering if Smith had simply died of fear—hanging there on that wheel while the earth around him exploded.

If so, I thought bitterly, it is Harker who killed him—just as much as that German solider in our trench or any of the others he’s slaughtered. Smith’s blood is on his hands. May God have mercy on him for it.

L
ATER

Smith’s death has affected me badly. My body feels drained and my heart seems to lie heavy in my chest. To me, death in action had always been a thing of honour. Until now.

The brutality of which Harker is capable shocks me. It seems vicious and cruel beyond belief, utterly unconnected with the world I have known.

I wonder how I will be able to return to that world when all of this is over.

11TH
A
UGUST 1916

Jenkins showed me a somewhat primitive way to kill lice today.

“See!” He held the candle flame against the fabric of the jacket dangling from his other hand. “Run the flame along the seams ’cause that’s where the buggers breed. Move it slow enough to roast ’em but not long enough to singe your shirt.”

“Is that the only way to get rid of the infuriating bloodsuckers?” I asked incredulously.

“It’s the only way the army knows.” Jenkins grinned.

The constant itching I experienced since coming to the trench had grown more and more unbearable as every piece of clothing I owned became infested with lice.

I followed Jenkins’s example and took a candle to my own jacket. “I can hear their bodies crackling!” I declared, revelling in the sound of victory.

“There’ll be more to replace ’em tomorrow,” Jenkins replied wryly.

No matter. Today I’d be free of the lice. I ran my candle up and down each seam, killing and killing.

Over the stink of burning insects, the smell of roasted meat filled my nostrils. I looked along the trench. Murray and Allen had caught a rat and skinned it. They were grilling it over their burner.

My stomach churned. The unending diet of tinned slop had left us all craving meat, but to feast on the animals who fed off our fallen comrades? I wondered if Murray and Allen would detect the flavour of their brethren inside the bodies of the rodents.

13TH
A
UGUST 1916

I was on a day shift today. The line crackled as I listened in to the German communications coming in from the saps. It was almost time for Butler to relieve me when I heard a rap on the door.

“About time, you lazy …” My words trailed off as Captain Harker entered the dugout. I tensed, now undeniably uneasy in his company.

“Anything of interest on the saps today, Lieutenant?” Harker asked, sitting on the edge of my desk.

“Not so far, sir,” I said.

Harker glanced around the small dugout. “This is a tiny office they’ve holed you up in,” he observed. He fixed his intense dark gaze on me. “You look like a dog in need of a run. I shall take you on a raid this evening. I promised you’d see some action.”

“Me, sir?” I answered, my heart beginning to race. Just days ago I had yearned for the opportunity to join Captain Harker behind enemy lines. Now I feared not only the
enemy but Harker himself. What barbarity might he be capable of on such a raid?

He drew a map from his pocket and spread it on my desk, covering the notepads and pens that lay there already. It was a rough sketch of no-man’s-land and the nearby enemy trenches. “There’s an enemy gun dug in here.” Harker jabbed the map with a long finger. “A nest of snipers.” He flashed me a brief grin, then went on, deadly serious. “We are going to destroy it.”

“Just us, sir?” I asked, hoping for the comfort of at least another soul during our journey.

“Of course,” Harker answered easily. “A smaller attack assures us the element of surprise.”

A rivulet of sweat crept down my back at the prospect.

Harker’s eyes gleamed with anticipation. “Prepare yourself well, Lieutenant Shaw. Seeing your enemy face-to-face is quite something.”

L
ATER

News that the captain is taking another officer—and an inexperienced one at that—on one of his night raids has not gone without comment amongst the men. I myself am really none the wiser to Harker’s reasons.

“You’re goin’ over the top at dusk?” Jenkins asked.

I nodded.

A louse leapt from the seam of my jacket. I caught the fleeing creature between a thumb and finger and stared for a while at the tiny squirming parasite that had caused me so much discomfort.

Then I crushed it. The pop, as I extinguished its life, filled me with some small satisfaction.

I examined the collapsed body stuck to my fingertip, stained red by the blood that it had sucked from me—blood that I had claimed back. “How many lice would it take to suck all the blood from a man, do you think?” I asked Jenkins. I showed him the dark red smear on my fingertip.

Jenkins looked at the squashed louse, then at me, a look of concern clouding his face. “You seem tired, sir. Perhaps you’d better try and get an hour’s kip before your raid with Captain Harker. Don’t worry, I’ll wake you in good time.”

But of course, I can’t sleep. How can I rest knowing what lies ahead of me?

I have checked my equipment repeatedly. There is nothing left but to sit and wait.

Though fear pulses through me like a fever, I am determined to see this through. I must be strong enough to face the enemy—as well as my commander.

Dear Lily, I do this for you and for England. May God bless you and protect me so that I might return safely.

There is Jenkins’s knock. I must go.

17TH
A
UGUST 1916

It is one in the morning, but I cannot sleep; my wound pains me, and my legs and back both ache with a fury. I returned to the trench today after two days in the field hospital. At least I can now distract myself by writing in my journal. I shall record the events that led to my injury during the night raid.

I watched the evening mist drifting through no-man’s-land as I waited for Captain Harker at the agreed location. Around me the men squatted in the trench, brewing tea and burning lice from their uniforms in their customary way. The wind carried mustard gas and my eyes stung and watered. I wrapped a scarf around my mouth and nose in a futile effort to keep the gas from my lungs.

The rattle of enemy guns sounded in the distance. Then suddenly, there was the familiar burst of noise as a screaming tornado of lead flew overhead, missing the trench by a great margin.

“Bloody shells,” swore Sergeant O’Reilly.

I stared down. The hated rats scuttled over my boots.

“No damned respect,” Corporal Jenkins spat. He put down his cup, reached for his rifle, then speared one of them with his bayonet.

Its squeal startled some of the men farther down the trench. They spun round expectantly, some fumbling for their rifles.

Jenkins held up the impaled, still-struggling creature, its engorged body shimmering in the half-light. Grim half smiles spread through the men.

“Ready, Lieutenant?”

Captain Harker’s voice startled me. I hadn’t heard his approach. I turned sharply to see his figure, tall and obscure in the dim light, face hidden beneath the shadow of his helmet.

“Yes, sir!” I replied.

The captain looked hard at me. “Very good,” he said. Then he turned and began to climb effortlessly up the wooden ladder.

Heart pounding, I heaved myself up after him. The parapet scraped against my jacket as I dragged myself over the edge. I stumbled onto the battlefield, body braced for the sudden hail of bullets that might burst it wide open.

I tried to slow my quickening breath while crawling after the captain, pressing my belly into the mud as he surveyed the ground ahead.

Meanwhile, my thoughts nagged at me.
Can you trust him? Can you trust the man who ordered the killing of Private Smith?

Even if I could, what about the enemy? How many Germans were in the gun entrenchment? What would the next hour bring?

Harker pointed to a gap in the enemy’s barbed wire where our guns had managed to pierce the deadly web.

We slithered forward like worms over the cratered earth, keeping low, trying to melt out of sight of the snipers. The mud seeped into my uniform and I felt it squelch against my skin.

We crawled over brush and the bodies of the dead. The corpses did not even bend beneath my weight as I followed the captain’s route.

“Don’t fall behind,” Harker ordered as I struggled to keep up.

Before us, the wall of barbed wire rose high above our heads. Harker thrust through the gap.

As I pushed through the wire after him, sharp metal barbs reached out and grabbed me, tearing first my sodden uniform and then my flesh. I yelped instinctively—and a jolt of panic shot through me. Who knew how many Germans guarded that gun? Had any of them heard my cry?

I stared at Harker, waiting for his reproach, but his eyes were fixed on the silhouette of the gun emplacement. Like a predator observing its prey.

Utterly fearless, he moved on, weaving his way through the blood-soaked mud. “Stay close!” he ordered over his shoulder.

We slid down into the shallow shelter of a shell crater a few yards in front of the emplacement. I could now see the barrel of the gun jutting out from its iron shielding, silent
and unmoving. I held my pistol tight in my hand, trying not to tremble as I prepared myself for action.

Harker crawled over the edge of the crater. He drew his sword and slipped, silent as a shadow, into the hollow where the gun was embedded. I followed.

For a moment all was silent.

Then three screaming soldiers rushed at us. Five more behind them.

Harker lifted his sword and slashed those nearest, tearing flesh and muscle as easily as soft butter. The soldiers’ blood sprayed the wooden walls. They fell, the butchered flesh of their fallen bodies convulsing beneath their torn uniforms.

The others backed away, barely able to raise their rifles. Harker let out a cry and lunged at them.

I didn’t see the hand catch hold of my foot—just felt it yank me down.

I crashed onto the duckboards, sliding on my back in the stinking mud that coated them. An enemy soldier loomed over me and lifted his rifle. He aimed the gleaming blade of his bayonet at my throat.

He glared at me, his face full of hatred. He tightened his grip on the gun barrel and thrust the blade downward.

I rolled hard to my right to avoid the fatal wound. Pain seared through my shoulder instead as the metal forced its way deep into my flesh.

My fear numbed me to the agony. I scrambled to my feet and charged into the soldier, unbalancing him. He staggered for a second, giving me enough time to lift my pistol and fire. Surprise flitted across his face as the bullet opened his chest. A red stain blossomed outward from the wound, colouring his uniform. He gazed down, then dropped to his knees.

I breathed hard as my mind struggled with scene before me. I had faced the enemy and won. I knew I should be happy. But my victory was short-lived.

The cold barrel of a rifle pressed against my temple. It was another enemy soldier, and this time, I could gain no advantage on him.

I turned to face my executioner. His boyish looks, blue eyes and the white-blond hair of a child, seemed bizarre to me. I did not expect death to be delivered by one who looked so innocent. He struggled to steady his shaking hands and prepared to squeeze the trigger—

His rifle barrel suddenly fell away. I watched silently as he fell facedown into the mud.

Captain Harker was standing behind him, his sword gleaming with blood.