The End of Innocence (20 page)

Near Ypres, Belgium

Monday, December 14, 1914

1:00 p.m.

Riley Spencer, Sydney Norton, and Paul Cotting slogged through the muddy plain as the noise of the convoy receded. In the distance, crows perched on islands of snow and picked through the waterlogged fields. Riley was hot with anger. German blood, indeed. He knew who the bad apple was. It was Sydney Norton, the Philistine whose mail was so filled with complaints the censors sent it back to him.

Nothing was ever good enough for Norton, and it hadn't been since they'd first laid eyes on each other at training camp. Norton complained constantly about the dirt and the generals and even about the boxes Princess Mary had sent for the soldiers' Christmas. He didn't work half as hard as the other men at digging. He whined about his feet getting wet and his hat being made of cloth—the same conditions they all lived with. His older brother had been killed at the Marne and you'd have thought that he was the only casualty of the entire war. In fact, he'd complained, and complained, and complained some more about bleak privation until no one in the regiment liked him. The only thing you could trust about Sydney was that he'd be first in line for free cigarettes.

Well
, thought Riley,
that
wasn't exactly fair.
You
could
trust
his
aim.
It was flawless. The fact that this hulking, lazy jackass could be so gifted was a sign that God had truly abandoned his senses.

“How are you doing, Paul?” asked Riley. The boy's cheeks were pink with exertion.

“Just fine, sir.”

“Where are you from?”

“Salisbury, sir.”

Riley smiled. “I once knew a girl in Salisbury.”

“Really?”

“Sally Gimble. Do you know her?”

“Can't say as I do.”

“Do you have a girl back in Salisbury?” asked Riley.

He shook his head. “Just my mum, and six sisters.”

“Six sisters! Well, when the war is over I expect you to invite me over so that I can tell them about your bravery.”

“There it is,” whispered Norton suddenly, pointing to the woods, rising from the field a quarter mile ahead. It was the first thing he'd said since they'd begun walking. Riley looked at him harshly. Such a know-it-all prig. He'd like the opportunity to cuff that man.

But that lesson would have to wait. Riley frowned as they drew closer. It looked like no wood he'd known. The firs and pines had been snapped like cornstalks, their splintered trunks broken. Leafless dark branches reached for the sky like the dry bones of hands, stopping well short of heaven. Other trees lay on their sides, uprooted from shelling. The cross section of one of the trunks was taller than Cotting. On the ground were the forms of the dead, both men and animals, bloated and dark, shrapnel littered around them. And it smelled like sulfur, spoiled eggs, and much worse.

Cotting's eyes widened. “No,” he began muttering, walking backward.

“Stop it, Cotting,” said Norton. A branch fell and splashed into a puddle. They looked up and froze.

“Sydney's right,” whispered Riley. “You'll be fine.”

Cotting shuddered and didn't speak. The look he gave Riley, along with the sick smell of wet decay, made Riley want to retch too. It was only Norton's presence that bolstered his stomach.

“Mr. Norton, would you please come here,” Riley called over to him. Norton stepped a few paces closer.

“We don't have typhus,” snapped Riley. Norton's eyes narrowed and he moved closer. “There may be snipers, so we'll move quickly using the trees as our cover. When we spot the soldiers, I say we hold fire until we know how many there are and then set up our positions.”

“Bayonets?” asked Cotting.

“Not until we need them.” The bayonets added a good pound of weight and foot of length to the end of the rifle.

Norton wore a bemused expression. “Yes?” asked Riley testily.

“Safety gear on, sir?” asked Norton. Cotting gave a nervous laugh. Riley's eyes narrowed. He knew how to deal with this man's arrogance.

“Norton,” said Riley, “I've learned all about the safety latches on the Enfield rifle.”

“Glad to hear it, sir,” he said with a smirk.

“Your mother taught me while I shaved her back,” he said with cold contempt.

Paul Cotting's eyes widened. Norton's face flushed bright red with anger. “You will regret that,” Norton muttered.

Riley moved closer to Norton's face and squinted. “I swear on your dead brother's unburied corpse that if you so much as look at me the wrong way from now on I will report you. You may be the best shot in the regiment, but there is not one man here who calls you ‘friend,' and a lack of friends, you will find, can make for a very nasty turn of events on a field of battle. Do you have anything else to say, Mr. Norton, to your ranking officer?”

Norton looked ahead and said nothing.

“If I ever hear about the rifle incident again you will be sorry.” Riley saw Norton's fists clench, but he kept silent.

Spencer ignored his look and walked confidently in front of him, taking care not to slip in the mud. That would look terrifically poor given what had just transpired.

Riley turned into the broken wood. They followed carefully, crouching behind stumps and moving silently from tree to tree, looking to the left and right, listening for the sound of the German party.

Norton's sharp eyes saw the stream first. “There,” he whispered. The creek had overflowed its banks, mixing the mud even deeper. They now moved as softly as possible, wading in mud up to their knees. They held their rifles up out of the bog.

After an hour of picking their way down the swollen stream, Riley heard a German voice. Out in the clearing he could make out the enemy soldiers working—digging, talking, smoking. But it wasn't four men. It was fifteen. Riley motioned Cotting and Norton closer.

“Time for bayonets on and safety latches off,” instructed Riley. “I'm going in. I can understand them, which is, Norton, of some use to the king today.” Riley adjusted his gear and picked his way carefully through the trees. A soldier was barking out orders about digging—the same Riley had heard in his own training camp. A young man with short black hair was busy testing a transmitter. Two guards, not much older than Cotting it would seem, were carelessly smoking their cigarettes, their guns resting beside them on the ground. The other soldiers were digging hurriedly, their rifles behind them with their lieutenant, who also busied himself with a shovel.

Those men thought they were alone in a still wood. No one stood watch. It was all quite lucky for him personally but a shocking display of disrespect to the king of England's troops.
This ignorance is what mandatory conscription gets you
, he thought disgustedly. Riley crept back to Norton and Cotting.

He placed Norton on the left, behind a tree from which he could shoot three of them easily. Riley and Cotting would take the middle and right sides of their thin line.

“When you hear me start shooting, then you fire off as many shots as possible. If we fire from three different angles we'll make it look like we're a much bigger force than we are. Norton, you take out the man holding the transmitter. Paul, there's only one man with his hand on a pistol and you're to shoot him if Norton misses. The others have rifles at rest. If they get a chance to pick them up, then we'll be outnumbered.”

“What happens then?” asked Cotting anxiously.

“We keep shooting,” said Norton matter-of-factly. “We either kill them or they run away. There are no other options.”

“All right, then.” The young man had turned green, but nodded dutifully and moved into his position behind the scarred trunk of a large tree.

The daylight was fading as Riley looked over at Norton, poised ready to shoot. Riley hoisted his rifle to his shoulder and put his cold, wet finger in the trigger. He looked down the barrel at the strip of men digging and talking. These men would as sure kill him as blink. He stepped back, only to land in a hole. His ankle wrenched as he fell. His finger, tangled in the trigger, shot off the gun.

Riley heard the Germans yell as he leaped back up, his ankle burning in pain. He turned to see Norton firing with an icy coolness, men falling before his deadly accuracy. Cotting, it seemed, was either firing into the dusky sky or the mud. The Germans picked up their rifles, returning the compliment.

Riley aimed carefully, winging one firing in Cotting's direction. Norton's rifle barked, and another man went down. Suddenly a cry rose from the trench and the line gave way. The Germans began running back, including one with the transmitter. Riley stepped out and began to run after them, his ankle burning. Before he could take a third step, the soldier with the transmitter slumped down, killed by Norton. In less than two minutes, it was over.

Riley hobbled over beyond the shallow trench. Littering the ground were shovels and kits, the rifles of the dead. The signal corps member lay dead beside his radio. He looked so young and fair, thought Riley, as Cotting picked up the small box. In the dusky gloom he saw Norton running to each of the German dead, bending over them, obviously proud of his quick and deadly work. And he should be. He'd killed five.

“Let's get back to camp, men. Good job, Norton. Sorry about the slip.”

The muscles in Norton's jaws tensed and his eyes shouted reproach.

“Mr. Norton, you have something you wish to say?”

He remained silent.

“I said I was sorry about my slip,” said Riley.

“Ten escaped. We could have captured them if you'd not given us away.”

Riley's shoulders sagged. “Our objective was to get the transmitter.”

“You cost me a Victoria Cross,” snapped Norton.

“What?” asked Riley incredulously, as blood rose to his cheeks. “What army would give you a VC for merely doing your job? You picked them off because you were hidden and provisioned and they were sitting ducks. No one gets the Victoria Cross for that. Really, Norton, after the several weeks I've had the misfortune to know you, I thought you would have at least understood your place.”

Norton's expression became uglier and angrier. But Riley refused to censor himself. Norton was a rebel and needed to be caged. Next thing you knew he'd be telling the men it was evidence of oppression by the wealthy class. Well, the simple fact was that Norton needed to be oppressed no matter what his station in life, and Riley was delighted to do it.

Norton turned toward the woods and began walking back, angering Riley even further. Cotting, ecstatic to be alive, ran to catch up with the ginger-haired giant.

“How did you learn to shoot like that?” Riley heard the awestruck young boy ask. Riley began to hobble along, trying to catch up.

The snow fell sparsely but the temperature dropped. Despite the action, Riley was colder now and wished to be back in billets. He ignored Norton the rest of the trip back, and the only occasional chatter came from Paul. Riley's ankle felt less pain the more he walked on it. He was thankful that it wasn't broken. The infantry didn't seem to care one way or the other.

The sun had long since set by the time they made it to the crude company headquarters along the supply road near Ypres. But it never really got dark in the war zone. Flares, shelling, the lights of trucks, men working at all hours kept things a dull gray.

An adjutant directed them toward a small shambles of a house where Tomkins billeted with a Belgian family.

A farmer in a patched overcoat admitted them to the cramped parlor through a stout door that barely survived on its top hinge. Riley caught a glimpse of what appeared to be the man's wife and baby huddled in a side room by a stove. The warmth of the house drained what energy Riley had left. He wished to make his report and be done with Norton and Cotting.

The captain sat in the parlor at a small table filling out paperwork. The table and chair seemed pathetically wobbly under Tomkins's muscular build, as if he could break them both by merely pressing too hard with his fountain pen.

Tomkins looked up from his desk blankly, as if he'd forgotten who the three were. “Where are your kits and coats?”

“With your quartermaster, sir,” said Riley. Tompkins's brow furrowed.

“You have a report for me?”

“Sir,” said Riley, “we secured the transmitter at the edge of the wood as you ordered. Five German casualties, all shot by Lieutenant Norton, including the signal corps member. Ten infantry escaped.”

Tomkins face brightened. He now seemed to recall the mission. “Three against fifteen?”

“Yes, sir,” responded Riley. He took a deep breath. “I regret to inform you that I discharged my weapon unadvisedly before the fight commenced, alerting the enemy to our presence. I have reason to believe we could have captured all of them had they not been so alerted. I stand responsible for my mistake.”

The captain shrugged. “Well, better luck next time. But three against fifteen. You won't hear me cursing you for that. I let nearly one thousand run away when we stormed the castle at Gheluvelt. The good thing is that the Germans no longer have their position.”

“Yes, sir,” said Riley, surprised at his good fortune. Norton would be miffed at that news, of course, but that was just his cross to bear. And not a Victorian Cross. What rubbish came out of that man's mouth.

After a few more questions the captain gave them leave to go to their evening billets, the farmhouse next door. He dismissed them and they turned to walk away.

“Stop!” said Tomkins suddenly. The three halted. “What's that sound?”

“Sound, sir?” asked Riley.

“Take one step back.”

They did as ordered and turned to face Tomkins. Riley heard a faint jingle.