smackenzie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
smackenzie) wrote2012-11-10 11:13 pm
smackenzie) wrote2012-11-10 11:13 pm
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the battle of the somme, day 1. davies ends up wandering around with his co.
At the shriek of Lt Fiske's whistle sounding the charge, Davies clambers up and over the parapet with the rest of his platoon. He's next to Gorin and Powell and, inexplicably, right behind Captain Bradford.
They crawl through their own barbed wire, which has been cut in places to allow the attacking battalions through, and then head across No Man's Land, marching in fairly straight lines while the Germans fire back at them. No Man's Land is a mess of craters and shell holes and torn-up fields, uneven and muddy, and while the German counterattack feels heavy to Davies, he can't think about it. He's with his platoon, behind his company commander, and nothing will stop their advance.
There's strong machine gun fire off to the right, aiming to the east of his battalion, at the battalions at the far end of the 18 Div's line. Davies' platoon doesn't even turn, just marches forward.
Despite the heavy shelling of the German line, there are still guns in the trenches, firing at the advancing battalions. Someone off to Davies' left screams and falls. Men continue around him, encouraged by platoon commanders and each other. He can hear bullets all around him, pitting the ground and other men. Some of the men drop, but others, even wounded, press on.
Gorin is hit and goes down. Davies wants to pick him up and carry him, wants him to be able to see the attack through, but there's no way and no time. He'll come back afterwards, collect Gorin from No Man's Land, get him to the casualty clearing station so the medical officer can patch him up.
Then Powell is right next to him, Bradford still just ahead, all of them still marching forward, inexorably, despite the enemy's guns and their own casualties, until the German trenches appear before them, many of the protective layers and loops of barbed wire cut through enough for the battalion to cross it and jump down into the trenches. There aren't nearly as many Germans down in the trench as Davies would have expected, and the ones that his platoon runs into surrender pretty quickly.
They plow through the trenches towards a town and the fields behind it, heading towards the German trench known as Montauban Alley, the place they're supposed to take and hold. There's still some enemy shelling but not enough to stop them, and the Germans they run ito either surrender or fight back. Powell is wounded on the arm, stumbles into Davies, and rights himself.
"Hurt bad?" Davies manages to ask. He has completely lost sight of Lt Fiske or any of the rest of his platoon, although he's pretty sure Captain Bradford is somewhere off to the right. He's not sure what platoon he and Powell have fallen in with, just that they're still with the same battalion. They might even be the same company.
"I'll be fine," Powell answers. "Don't leave me."
"I didn't come all this way just to abandon you in a trench." He grabs Powell's unhurt arm to keep him steady and the two of them press forward.
It took them no time at all to cross No Man's Land, it seems, but now they struggle through the trenches with the rest of the men. They climb out and skirt the town, which from their vantage point seems to be in complete ruins, not to mention taken over by another battalion. There are Germans still in the area west of the town, not to mention north behind their retreating line, and the battalion engages them as the sun climbs higher into the sky. Davies hasn't had to fight in such close quarters in a long time, and he's not used to hand-to-hand fighting with a firearm, but he can't drop his rifle to better use his fists. The bayonet makes a good weapon, though, for those times one of the enemy gets too close for him to fire at.
Davies is exhausted after the charge across No Man's Land and the struggle through the enemy trenches, never mind a long night with little sleep and the tremendous noise of his own side's artillery bombardment. But there's no stopping now, not until the enemy position is taken or the entire battalion is dead. He loses Powell as they fight towards what he hopes is Montauban Alley, but then he thinks he sees Morehouse stumbling towards him, blood running down the side of his neck from what looks like a shrapnel wound - or maybe he was caught by a German's bayonet - it trails down over the collar of his tunic. His face is white, his eyes wild.
"Thank god," he pants. "I thought I lost the whole platoon."
"Have you seen Powell?" Davies asks. "Gorin was hit."
"Ah, Christ. Lt Fiske went down too, in the first trench we took. We captured the Hun who got him. Don't think he's dead, though - he was yelling at us to keep going when last I saw. Did we take it?"
"Not yet, I don't think." It suddenly occurs to Davies how incredibly surreal this is, himself and Morehouse standing in the middle of a battle, chatting about their experiences as if they were resting in their own trench, or back in billets, or even somewhere at home. He chuckles. Morehouse looks alarmed.
"It's not funny," he says.
"No, no, it is. We should move."
"Which - "
"Eleventh Fusiliers, yes?" someone says from behind them, suddenly grabbing Davies' shoulder. Davies startles, spins sideways, and finds himself staring at Captain Bradford, dirt on his face and blood on his tunic. The captain looks relieved. "Come with me. The battalion's gathering this way."
He leads them back and off to the right, to a small and inexplicably still-standing copse of trees, where they meet a group of men that Davies hopes isn't the remainder of the battalion, or even the rest of C Company - there are maybe thirty of them, mostly privates, a couple of NCOs and at least one platoon commander he recognizes - and they push north and a little west through what's left of the German defenses.
The sun is falling by the time they reach the Alley. Their men - or someone's men, anyway - seem to have gotten here first, as the Germans (at least the living ones) have all been cleared out. Captain Bradford and the platoon commander Davies recognizes organize small search parties for the rest of their battalion, for any dead or wounded, and for any stray Germans who might still be alive and in the vicinity. Someone sends a couple of runners out, presumably to find out how other divisions fared and to get orders for the next push. No one seems to know anything, other than who might have fallen and who might still be alive somewhere in No Man's Land or in the captured German trenches.
There doesn't seem to be any German artillery left to speak of, but as the battalion starts organizing its wounded and trying to get some relief supplies, the enemy starts shelling from somewhere behind their new line. Davies is inexplicably pissed off - he wants to sit down and eat something and find Powell and go back for Gorin, and if nothing else he wants some damn peace and quiet after the long, long struggle to get here.
But the shelling continues as the men hustle for cover. There's not a lot you can do against a shell. But they're alone in this stretch of the Alley, and Captain Bradford and the platoon commander send the men west down the trench, towards the setting sun, until they come upon another battalion, and gratefully join them.
Davies has now lost Morehouse as well as Powell, not to mention the rest of his platoon, but the last he saw of Morehouse, the man was upright and moving. The wound in his neck must be a surface wound, and he's probably mixed in with the new battalion. Now if Davies can just find Powell, just to know he's still alive. They've known each other since they were both in school. Powell used to tease Davies' little sisters, when they were young enough to be bothered by it, and Davies used to smack him for doing it. They joined up together, went through training together, propped each other against the railing on the steamer that took them across the Channel. Davies knows him better than he knows anyone else in his platoon, and while he likes the men in his platoon and is worried about the rest of them - especially Gorin, because they went over the parapet together and Davies saw him go down - Powell is probably the closest to a brother that Davies has in this place.
He hears the whine of a shell going overhead, followed by a thump and an explosion. Dirt and debris rain down on him from somewhere outside the trench where the shell hit. At least it isn't a mortar, and it isn't filled with shrapnel, and he hasn't been hit by any flying bits of metal.
"Mr Davies," Captain Bradford says, appearing next to him. How the hell does he do that? Davies wonders. "Are you fit?"
No, sir, Davies wants to answer. I'm exhausted and worried and I don't know where my platoon is or even if they're alive.
"Are you hit?" the captain clarifies.
"No, sir," Davies says. This at least is an answer he can give.
"Good man. Come with me." He starts down the trench, weaving around men - living and wounded and dead - and weapons and helmets and piles of dirt and broken duckboards and spilled sandbags and splintered wood revetting from where shells or mortars have caused damage. Montauban Alley must have been a solid trench before the British bombardment, and if the Germans now trying to shell it would just let up, the battalion currently holding it could start shoring it up. Although to be fair, it looks as if some of the men have started doing just that.
"Captain Bradford," Davies says. "where's the rest of the battalion? Are we it?"
"No." The answer is short, clipped, and instant. Either he's absolutely sure that the rest of the battalion is out there somewhere, or he hopes they are. Davies doesn't want to know which it is.
He realizes he hasn't seen Captain Armstrong, C Company second in command, anywhere.
"You're going to help me find them," Captain Bradford goes on. By now they've reached a dugout. The captain climbs down into it. Davies waits in the trench, ducking instinctively when another shell bursts nearby, close enough to make the ground shake but not so close that the trench wall falls in. It does start to slide, though.
Two minutes later Captain Bradford is back. He has a torch, which he flicks on, shines up and down the trench to test it out, and flicks back off. "Just in case," he tells Davies. "I lost mine. Don't tell anyone."
The incongruity of his own company commander telling him not to tattle on him strikes Davies as so ridiculous, and so absurd, and Captain Bradford sounds so serious, that he laughs. Captain Bradford looks a little worried, the same as Morehouse did back when they were lost in the fields discussing where they were.
"Are you sure you're ok, Mr Davies?" Captain Bradford asks.
"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. What about the rest of the men?"
"They'll stay here until we find our battalion. This is the 8th Norfolk, so at least we're with the right division. But we need to find battalion HQ. We've taken Montauban Alley and should have cleared out the Germans, but if we meet an attacking party you need to be ready. Check your ammo."
Davies does.
"Good man. This way."
They climb out of the trench, navigate around the barbed wire, and hustle down the length of it, away from the town and hopefully towards the rest of their battalion.
"How are you doing?" Captain Bradford asks after a while.
"Fine, sir."
"Tell me if you hear anything."
They've moved away from the lip of the Alley to get out of the barbed wire, and now that Davies knows to listen, and since there's no shelling right now, he can hear the sounds of men moving around down in the trench. Faint sounds, to be sure, but definitely the noises of tired and wounded men and their attempts to shore up their captured trench.
"There should be sentries watching us," Captain Bradford goes on. "The company CO I spoke to back at 8th Norfolk HQ said he would try to send word up the Alley that we're here, and not to shoot us." He pauses and flicks his torch on and off three times in quick succession.
"Signal, sir?" Davies asks.
"Indeed."
They hurry on through the dark. A shell falls off to their left, close enough and big enough to knock them both over, but not quite close enough to kill. Davies lands heavily on his back, scant inches from the tangle of barbed wire, the wind knocked out of him. He can't see anything and for a second he thinks he might have gone blind. He can't take a deep breath. He can hear the air rasping in his throat as he tries. His heart is pounding, his hands and feet are numb. He thinks he might have fallen on his rifle, and wouldn't that just be the perfect end to a perfect day.
Then his vision clears enough for him to remember that he can't see anything because it's nighttime and there's nothing to see anyway but barbed wire and blasted countryside (and probably dead men, but he isn't going to think about that now), and he and Captain Bradford are making their way down Montauban Alley, their objective in this whole offensive, to find their battalion. And he's not dead.
And he can breathe again.
"Captain Bradford," he wheezes, trying to sit up, or at least turn his head, so he can see what happened to his CO.
"Oh good, you're still in one piece." The captain's face appears over him. There's no light to see his features, but from his tone of voice Davies assumes he's relieved. Captain Bradford holds out his hand and hauls Davies to his feet. Davies pats himself down - he didn't land on his rifle, he landed on hard ground and rocks.
There's noise down in the trench, and then a head appears with a torch. The light sweeps across the ground and over them.
"Hello," Captain Bradford calls softly, picking his way through the barbed wire towards the sentry. "Captain Bradford, C Company, 11th Fusiliers. We're looking for our battalion."
"This is the 2nd Bedfordshire, Captain," the sentry says, his voice barely above a whisper. "They should be farther down." The torchlight briefly swings left, then the sentry flicks it off.
"Thank you, private."
"It's sergeant, sir. Sergeant Germain. I was only promoted a week ago."
"Sorry about that, Sergeant. Congratulations."
"Thank you, sir."
Davies thinks he can see the sentry's head disappear behind the parapet, and he and Captain Bradford contine on.
The shelling picks up, pounding the fields around them, although none of them hit as close as the last one. Soon Captain Bradford stops again, flicks his torch three times, and crawls up to the parapet of the trench. He gestures at Davies to get down, and in the brief lull Davies can hear whispering. Another shell explodes close enough for him to feel it through the ground.
"This is us," Captain Bradford hisses, and Davies can just make out a hand waving him forward. Davies crawls through the barbed wire and follows the captain down into the trench.
The captain is talking to someone carrying a lantern, the light dimmer than a torch would be but just enough to see by. Davies can see the two stars on the man's sleeve. A lieutenant. There are men all around them, some sitting and some standing, and as he waits for an order - because as badly as he wants to find Powell and the rest of his platoon, it would be bad discipline to vanish before his CO dismisses him, and he didn't come all this way just to be disciplined by a superior officer - a few men hustle past them carrying shovels.
A shell explodes somewhere. The lieutenant flinches.
"If you could direct me to battalion HQ," Captain Bradford is saying, "I would be grateful."
The lieutenant points. "Around that traverse, Captain. It's the dugout with the gas curtain. Lt Colonel Berridge should be down there."
"Thank you, lieutenant." He turns to Davies. In the faint light from the lieutenant's lantern he looks pale under the dirt streaking his face, and he looks tired. He also looks relieved, and grateful. He smiles and holds out his hand. Davies blinks at it. "Mr Davies. Thank you."
He wants me to shake? Davies wonders. But he takes the hand and receives a firm handshake in return. Captain Bradford has a very solid grip for a man who's just spent an indeterminate but nervewracking length of time walking along a captured trench trying to find his men, never mind the entire day preceding it.
"Try to get some rest," the captain continues. He's still holding Davies' hand. Davies is a little weirded out and wishes he would let go. It seems too familiar a gesture from a superior officer to a private. "Feel free to look for your platoon. I'll take someone else with me to fetch the rest of the men from the 8th Norfolk." He lets go and puts his hand briefly on Davies' shoulder. "Good work."
And then he turns and heads down the trench, presumably to find battalion HQ to report in and get someone to go back down the line with him.
The lieutenant has also gone back to whatever he was doing, leaving Davies to collar someone to ask if he has any idea where C Company is, in particular Lt Fiske's platoon, and does he know Dickon Powell?
After some searching and some asking while shells fall around them and he tries not to step on any wounded men, Davies finds Powell resting on the step, a bandage around his arm.
"Tommy!" Powell cries. "Christ, man, I thought you were dead! No one knew where you'd gone."
"I got lost," Davies says, sitting down next to him. He feels more relieved than he's ever felt in his life. Now he just needs to find the rest of the platoon and learn whether or not Lt Fiske is dead, and wait for Morehouse to get back with the rest of the men who were left behind, and he'll be better. Still tired, stil hungry, getting more and more rattled from all the shelling, but better.
"Did you get any rations?" he asks Powell, who shakes his head.
"Don't think we will for a while yet." He gestures up at the sky, indicating the shelling that's stopping them from getting resupplied and fed. "You can dig into your iron rations if you're hungry."
"How's the arm?"
"Could be worse. Temporarily got me out of work duty. We still have some men out there, don't we?" He sounds hopeful, as if he's assuming the answer is yes. "Not dead."
"Yeah, there's about thirty holed up back down the line with another battalion. The, uh, Norfolk. 8th Norfolk. I came with Captain Bradford to find you. He said he'd get someone else to help him bring them up here." He shook my hand and thanked me. "Morehouse is down there, or should be. Last I saw he was ok."
A shell explodes somewhere close. Davies hears yelling. It must have hit the trench, or close enough to make no difference.
"We have to hold the line until we get relieved," Powell tells him unnecesssarily. "Don’t know the next objective."
Davies has no coherent response to that. He wonders if he can sleep with this bombardment. Now that he's here with his own battalion and the remains of his company, and now that he's found Powell and has no immediate need to be anywhere – no orders from on high, no nothing – he's actively, stomach-clenchingly, hungry. And exhausted. And thirsty. And his body aches from when the shell concussion threw him.
He feels pressure on his arm and shoulder, and turns his head to see that Powell has fallen asleep leaning against him. Davies kind of envies that. He wishes he'd thought to ask Powell where the rest of their platoon was. He's certainly not going to look for them now, but he'd at least like to know where they are.
words: 3475
total words: 17,618
note: icon! that's davies. (actually tom hardy in colditz, which i think is set during ww2 but whatever. my other option was a screencap from band of brothers.) also the thing i know i left out of this bit is that the fields, the trenches, and no man's land would've been if not covered at least scattered with dead and wounded men. the british army lost 20% of its entire fighting force the first day of the battle of the somme. that's a lot of bodies. also also, trying to plot this thing on a map is A PAIN IN THE ASS.
They crawl through their own barbed wire, which has been cut in places to allow the attacking battalions through, and then head across No Man's Land, marching in fairly straight lines while the Germans fire back at them. No Man's Land is a mess of craters and shell holes and torn-up fields, uneven and muddy, and while the German counterattack feels heavy to Davies, he can't think about it. He's with his platoon, behind his company commander, and nothing will stop their advance.
There's strong machine gun fire off to the right, aiming to the east of his battalion, at the battalions at the far end of the 18 Div's line. Davies' platoon doesn't even turn, just marches forward.
Despite the heavy shelling of the German line, there are still guns in the trenches, firing at the advancing battalions. Someone off to Davies' left screams and falls. Men continue around him, encouraged by platoon commanders and each other. He can hear bullets all around him, pitting the ground and other men. Some of the men drop, but others, even wounded, press on.
Gorin is hit and goes down. Davies wants to pick him up and carry him, wants him to be able to see the attack through, but there's no way and no time. He'll come back afterwards, collect Gorin from No Man's Land, get him to the casualty clearing station so the medical officer can patch him up.
Then Powell is right next to him, Bradford still just ahead, all of them still marching forward, inexorably, despite the enemy's guns and their own casualties, until the German trenches appear before them, many of the protective layers and loops of barbed wire cut through enough for the battalion to cross it and jump down into the trenches. There aren't nearly as many Germans down in the trench as Davies would have expected, and the ones that his platoon runs into surrender pretty quickly.
They plow through the trenches towards a town and the fields behind it, heading towards the German trench known as Montauban Alley, the place they're supposed to take and hold. There's still some enemy shelling but not enough to stop them, and the Germans they run ito either surrender or fight back. Powell is wounded on the arm, stumbles into Davies, and rights himself.
"Hurt bad?" Davies manages to ask. He has completely lost sight of Lt Fiske or any of the rest of his platoon, although he's pretty sure Captain Bradford is somewhere off to the right. He's not sure what platoon he and Powell have fallen in with, just that they're still with the same battalion. They might even be the same company.
"I'll be fine," Powell answers. "Don't leave me."
"I didn't come all this way just to abandon you in a trench." He grabs Powell's unhurt arm to keep him steady and the two of them press forward.
It took them no time at all to cross No Man's Land, it seems, but now they struggle through the trenches with the rest of the men. They climb out and skirt the town, which from their vantage point seems to be in complete ruins, not to mention taken over by another battalion. There are Germans still in the area west of the town, not to mention north behind their retreating line, and the battalion engages them as the sun climbs higher into the sky. Davies hasn't had to fight in such close quarters in a long time, and he's not used to hand-to-hand fighting with a firearm, but he can't drop his rifle to better use his fists. The bayonet makes a good weapon, though, for those times one of the enemy gets too close for him to fire at.
Davies is exhausted after the charge across No Man's Land and the struggle through the enemy trenches, never mind a long night with little sleep and the tremendous noise of his own side's artillery bombardment. But there's no stopping now, not until the enemy position is taken or the entire battalion is dead. He loses Powell as they fight towards what he hopes is Montauban Alley, but then he thinks he sees Morehouse stumbling towards him, blood running down the side of his neck from what looks like a shrapnel wound - or maybe he was caught by a German's bayonet - it trails down over the collar of his tunic. His face is white, his eyes wild.
"Thank god," he pants. "I thought I lost the whole platoon."
"Have you seen Powell?" Davies asks. "Gorin was hit."
"Ah, Christ. Lt Fiske went down too, in the first trench we took. We captured the Hun who got him. Don't think he's dead, though - he was yelling at us to keep going when last I saw. Did we take it?"
"Not yet, I don't think." It suddenly occurs to Davies how incredibly surreal this is, himself and Morehouse standing in the middle of a battle, chatting about their experiences as if they were resting in their own trench, or back in billets, or even somewhere at home. He chuckles. Morehouse looks alarmed.
"It's not funny," he says.
"No, no, it is. We should move."
"Which - "
"Eleventh Fusiliers, yes?" someone says from behind them, suddenly grabbing Davies' shoulder. Davies startles, spins sideways, and finds himself staring at Captain Bradford, dirt on his face and blood on his tunic. The captain looks relieved. "Come with me. The battalion's gathering this way."
He leads them back and off to the right, to a small and inexplicably still-standing copse of trees, where they meet a group of men that Davies hopes isn't the remainder of the battalion, or even the rest of C Company - there are maybe thirty of them, mostly privates, a couple of NCOs and at least one platoon commander he recognizes - and they push north and a little west through what's left of the German defenses.
The sun is falling by the time they reach the Alley. Their men - or someone's men, anyway - seem to have gotten here first, as the Germans (at least the living ones) have all been cleared out. Captain Bradford and the platoon commander Davies recognizes organize small search parties for the rest of their battalion, for any dead or wounded, and for any stray Germans who might still be alive and in the vicinity. Someone sends a couple of runners out, presumably to find out how other divisions fared and to get orders for the next push. No one seems to know anything, other than who might have fallen and who might still be alive somewhere in No Man's Land or in the captured German trenches.
There doesn't seem to be any German artillery left to speak of, but as the battalion starts organizing its wounded and trying to get some relief supplies, the enemy starts shelling from somewhere behind their new line. Davies is inexplicably pissed off - he wants to sit down and eat something and find Powell and go back for Gorin, and if nothing else he wants some damn peace and quiet after the long, long struggle to get here.
But the shelling continues as the men hustle for cover. There's not a lot you can do against a shell. But they're alone in this stretch of the Alley, and Captain Bradford and the platoon commander send the men west down the trench, towards the setting sun, until they come upon another battalion, and gratefully join them.
Davies has now lost Morehouse as well as Powell, not to mention the rest of his platoon, but the last he saw of Morehouse, the man was upright and moving. The wound in his neck must be a surface wound, and he's probably mixed in with the new battalion. Now if Davies can just find Powell, just to know he's still alive. They've known each other since they were both in school. Powell used to tease Davies' little sisters, when they were young enough to be bothered by it, and Davies used to smack him for doing it. They joined up together, went through training together, propped each other against the railing on the steamer that took them across the Channel. Davies knows him better than he knows anyone else in his platoon, and while he likes the men in his platoon and is worried about the rest of them - especially Gorin, because they went over the parapet together and Davies saw him go down - Powell is probably the closest to a brother that Davies has in this place.
He hears the whine of a shell going overhead, followed by a thump and an explosion. Dirt and debris rain down on him from somewhere outside the trench where the shell hit. At least it isn't a mortar, and it isn't filled with shrapnel, and he hasn't been hit by any flying bits of metal.
"Mr Davies," Captain Bradford says, appearing next to him. How the hell does he do that? Davies wonders. "Are you fit?"
No, sir, Davies wants to answer. I'm exhausted and worried and I don't know where my platoon is or even if they're alive.
"Are you hit?" the captain clarifies.
"No, sir," Davies says. This at least is an answer he can give.
"Good man. Come with me." He starts down the trench, weaving around men - living and wounded and dead - and weapons and helmets and piles of dirt and broken duckboards and spilled sandbags and splintered wood revetting from where shells or mortars have caused damage. Montauban Alley must have been a solid trench before the British bombardment, and if the Germans now trying to shell it would just let up, the battalion currently holding it could start shoring it up. Although to be fair, it looks as if some of the men have started doing just that.
"Captain Bradford," Davies says. "where's the rest of the battalion? Are we it?"
"No." The answer is short, clipped, and instant. Either he's absolutely sure that the rest of the battalion is out there somewhere, or he hopes they are. Davies doesn't want to know which it is.
He realizes he hasn't seen Captain Armstrong, C Company second in command, anywhere.
"You're going to help me find them," Captain Bradford goes on. By now they've reached a dugout. The captain climbs down into it. Davies waits in the trench, ducking instinctively when another shell bursts nearby, close enough to make the ground shake but not so close that the trench wall falls in. It does start to slide, though.
Two minutes later Captain Bradford is back. He has a torch, which he flicks on, shines up and down the trench to test it out, and flicks back off. "Just in case," he tells Davies. "I lost mine. Don't tell anyone."
The incongruity of his own company commander telling him not to tattle on him strikes Davies as so ridiculous, and so absurd, and Captain Bradford sounds so serious, that he laughs. Captain Bradford looks a little worried, the same as Morehouse did back when they were lost in the fields discussing where they were.
"Are you sure you're ok, Mr Davies?" Captain Bradford asks.
"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. What about the rest of the men?"
"They'll stay here until we find our battalion. This is the 8th Norfolk, so at least we're with the right division. But we need to find battalion HQ. We've taken Montauban Alley and should have cleared out the Germans, but if we meet an attacking party you need to be ready. Check your ammo."
Davies does.
"Good man. This way."
They climb out of the trench, navigate around the barbed wire, and hustle down the length of it, away from the town and hopefully towards the rest of their battalion.
"How are you doing?" Captain Bradford asks after a while.
"Fine, sir."
"Tell me if you hear anything."
They've moved away from the lip of the Alley to get out of the barbed wire, and now that Davies knows to listen, and since there's no shelling right now, he can hear the sounds of men moving around down in the trench. Faint sounds, to be sure, but definitely the noises of tired and wounded men and their attempts to shore up their captured trench.
"There should be sentries watching us," Captain Bradford goes on. "The company CO I spoke to back at 8th Norfolk HQ said he would try to send word up the Alley that we're here, and not to shoot us." He pauses and flicks his torch on and off three times in quick succession.
"Signal, sir?" Davies asks.
"Indeed."
They hurry on through the dark. A shell falls off to their left, close enough and big enough to knock them both over, but not quite close enough to kill. Davies lands heavily on his back, scant inches from the tangle of barbed wire, the wind knocked out of him. He can't see anything and for a second he thinks he might have gone blind. He can't take a deep breath. He can hear the air rasping in his throat as he tries. His heart is pounding, his hands and feet are numb. He thinks he might have fallen on his rifle, and wouldn't that just be the perfect end to a perfect day.
Then his vision clears enough for him to remember that he can't see anything because it's nighttime and there's nothing to see anyway but barbed wire and blasted countryside (and probably dead men, but he isn't going to think about that now), and he and Captain Bradford are making their way down Montauban Alley, their objective in this whole offensive, to find their battalion. And he's not dead.
And he can breathe again.
"Captain Bradford," he wheezes, trying to sit up, or at least turn his head, so he can see what happened to his CO.
"Oh good, you're still in one piece." The captain's face appears over him. There's no light to see his features, but from his tone of voice Davies assumes he's relieved. Captain Bradford holds out his hand and hauls Davies to his feet. Davies pats himself down - he didn't land on his rifle, he landed on hard ground and rocks.
There's noise down in the trench, and then a head appears with a torch. The light sweeps across the ground and over them.
"Hello," Captain Bradford calls softly, picking his way through the barbed wire towards the sentry. "Captain Bradford, C Company, 11th Fusiliers. We're looking for our battalion."
"This is the 2nd Bedfordshire, Captain," the sentry says, his voice barely above a whisper. "They should be farther down." The torchlight briefly swings left, then the sentry flicks it off.
"Thank you, private."
"It's sergeant, sir. Sergeant Germain. I was only promoted a week ago."
"Sorry about that, Sergeant. Congratulations."
"Thank you, sir."
Davies thinks he can see the sentry's head disappear behind the parapet, and he and Captain Bradford contine on.
The shelling picks up, pounding the fields around them, although none of them hit as close as the last one. Soon Captain Bradford stops again, flicks his torch three times, and crawls up to the parapet of the trench. He gestures at Davies to get down, and in the brief lull Davies can hear whispering. Another shell explodes close enough for him to feel it through the ground.
"This is us," Captain Bradford hisses, and Davies can just make out a hand waving him forward. Davies crawls through the barbed wire and follows the captain down into the trench.
The captain is talking to someone carrying a lantern, the light dimmer than a torch would be but just enough to see by. Davies can see the two stars on the man's sleeve. A lieutenant. There are men all around them, some sitting and some standing, and as he waits for an order - because as badly as he wants to find Powell and the rest of his platoon, it would be bad discipline to vanish before his CO dismisses him, and he didn't come all this way just to be disciplined by a superior officer - a few men hustle past them carrying shovels.
A shell explodes somewhere. The lieutenant flinches.
"If you could direct me to battalion HQ," Captain Bradford is saying, "I would be grateful."
The lieutenant points. "Around that traverse, Captain. It's the dugout with the gas curtain. Lt Colonel Berridge should be down there."
"Thank you, lieutenant." He turns to Davies. In the faint light from the lieutenant's lantern he looks pale under the dirt streaking his face, and he looks tired. He also looks relieved, and grateful. He smiles and holds out his hand. Davies blinks at it. "Mr Davies. Thank you."
He wants me to shake? Davies wonders. But he takes the hand and receives a firm handshake in return. Captain Bradford has a very solid grip for a man who's just spent an indeterminate but nervewracking length of time walking along a captured trench trying to find his men, never mind the entire day preceding it.
"Try to get some rest," the captain continues. He's still holding Davies' hand. Davies is a little weirded out and wishes he would let go. It seems too familiar a gesture from a superior officer to a private. "Feel free to look for your platoon. I'll take someone else with me to fetch the rest of the men from the 8th Norfolk." He lets go and puts his hand briefly on Davies' shoulder. "Good work."
And then he turns and heads down the trench, presumably to find battalion HQ to report in and get someone to go back down the line with him.
The lieutenant has also gone back to whatever he was doing, leaving Davies to collar someone to ask if he has any idea where C Company is, in particular Lt Fiske's platoon, and does he know Dickon Powell?
After some searching and some asking while shells fall around them and he tries not to step on any wounded men, Davies finds Powell resting on the step, a bandage around his arm.
"Tommy!" Powell cries. "Christ, man, I thought you were dead! No one knew where you'd gone."
"I got lost," Davies says, sitting down next to him. He feels more relieved than he's ever felt in his life. Now he just needs to find the rest of the platoon and learn whether or not Lt Fiske is dead, and wait for Morehouse to get back with the rest of the men who were left behind, and he'll be better. Still tired, stil hungry, getting more and more rattled from all the shelling, but better.
"Did you get any rations?" he asks Powell, who shakes his head.
"Don't think we will for a while yet." He gestures up at the sky, indicating the shelling that's stopping them from getting resupplied and fed. "You can dig into your iron rations if you're hungry."
"How's the arm?"
"Could be worse. Temporarily got me out of work duty. We still have some men out there, don't we?" He sounds hopeful, as if he's assuming the answer is yes. "Not dead."
"Yeah, there's about thirty holed up back down the line with another battalion. The, uh, Norfolk. 8th Norfolk. I came with Captain Bradford to find you. He said he'd get someone else to help him bring them up here." He shook my hand and thanked me. "Morehouse is down there, or should be. Last I saw he was ok."
A shell explodes somewhere close. Davies hears yelling. It must have hit the trench, or close enough to make no difference.
"We have to hold the line until we get relieved," Powell tells him unnecesssarily. "Don’t know the next objective."
Davies has no coherent response to that. He wonders if he can sleep with this bombardment. Now that he's here with his own battalion and the remains of his company, and now that he's found Powell and has no immediate need to be anywhere – no orders from on high, no nothing – he's actively, stomach-clenchingly, hungry. And exhausted. And thirsty. And his body aches from when the shell concussion threw him.
He feels pressure on his arm and shoulder, and turns his head to see that Powell has fallen asleep leaning against him. Davies kind of envies that. He wishes he'd thought to ask Powell where the rest of their platoon was. He's certainly not going to look for them now, but he'd at least like to know where they are.
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note: icon! that's davies. (actually tom hardy in colditz, which i think is set during ww2 but whatever. my other option was a screencap from band of brothers.) also the thing i know i left out of this bit is that the fields, the trenches, and no man's land would've been if not covered at least scattered with dead and wounded men. the british army lost 20% of its entire fighting force the first day of the battle of the somme. that's a lot of bodies. also also, trying to plot this thing on a map is A PAIN IN THE ASS.
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