(i'm getting there, i promise)
Nov. 16th, 2012 01:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smackenzieThe battalion moves back to the trenches after a week in billets, just as Bradford is getting used to sleeping aboveground again. The men have been drilling and training under the orders of the divisonal commander, getting ready for another offensive. Bradford has only received the vaguest of orders from Lt Colonel Berridge, but with the understanding that when the lt colonel knows more, his company commanders will know more too.
So for now, it's another few days in the front-line trench, with the mud and the rats and the crowded conditions and the constant shelling, stand to and scouting parties and trench repair and trying to keep his men from going mad.
Perhaps he's been lucky – no one has cracked up completely yet, although he's been keeping an eye on Lt Farrell, one of the platoon commanders, who seems a bit shaky and not entirely all there.
One night Bradford is sitting in his company HQ – a small but fairly watertight dugout, with two bunkbeds and a desk and chair – writing in his diary while his second in command, a young captain named Harris, is off inspecting the men. He can hear the booming of shells and the rattle of machine-gun fire, and then Cuthbertson pokes his head in and says "I was looking for you – we need another man for cards."
Bradford raises an eyebrow at him.
"My quartermaster found me a pack of cards," Cuthbertson goes on, "and we need something to pass the time. One can't spend one's entire night pacing up and down the line. Well, maybe you can." He grins.
Cuthbertson is always extraordinarily cheerful, Bradford writes in his diary. I don't know how he does it.
"I should tell Captain Harris where I've gone," he says, "in case he comes looking for me."
"Isn't it his job to look for you?"
"It shouldn't be."
"Come on, Harry, come talk with me and Purcell about something besides the war. If we're lucky he might regale us with tales of his days as a Westminster choirboy."
Well, at least he won't be alone. His platoon commanders are all out in the trench – and Sergeant Campbell is off with a scouting party – and he's not quite sure where his company quartermaster has gotten to. Scrounging up something for the men, hopefully. So he'll play cards with Cuthbertson and Purcell and, if possible, talk about things that aren't the war.
His and Cuthbertson's trek through the trenches to A Company headquarters is cut short by a shell landing half in the barbed wire in front of the parapet and half in a sap, causing a landslide into the listening post and half-burying the men in it. Bradford can hear someone yell "Stretcher bearers!" as he and Cuthbertson reach the mouth of the sap where it connects to the front-line trench. Bradford is pretty sure they're with B Company now, and it's not his own men who are drowning in mud or picking themselves up from the trench floor, where they threw themselves when they heard the shell coming.
"Where's your trench tool?" Bradford demands of the closest soldier. He points down the sap, now half-full of mud. "Start digging." Someone is already scrabbling through the mud to reach the men at the end of it, who seem to be struggling to get free. There's yelling and shouting and Bradford recognizes an officer from B Company who starts giving orders. Two stretcher bearers struggle down the front-line trench with their stretcher.
"We can take it from here, Captains," one of them tells Bradford and Cuthbertson. It's a polite way of telling them to move it, they're in the way. They move. As much as Bradford wants to help, and as much as he hates seeing men buried in mud by a shell explosion, they're not his men and he needs to get out of the stretcher bearers' way so they can do their job.
Bradford and Cuthbertson head back towards C Company. They could probably go down a communication trench to the support trench and cut across behind the front line and around the now-destroyed sap and the men being dug out of it, but Bradford feels a need to see his own men and make sure they're all ok. It's a strange reaction, he admits to himself, more like a mother worried about her children than an officer with his men. But to be honest, sometimes he does feel like a mother to them, privates and NCOs alike. They're still his responsibility.
"Are you dragging me along on inspection with you?" Cuthbertson asks.
"You can go back to your own company if you like," Bradford tells him. "I don't want to be trapped inside a dugout if it's hit by a shell."
"Claustrophobia." Cuthbertson nods in understanding. Bradford isn't quite sure that's what it is, but he isn't going to argue. "But as you can see, we can be hit just as easily outside." He nudges Bradford's shoulder. "Think of it this way – if we are hit by a shell, at least now you won't die alone."
Bradford isn't exactly comforted.
He climbs up onto the step to talk to a sentry, and while they're standing there the Germans send up a flare. Bradford doesn't even have to be looking through the sentry's periscope to see it, it's that close and bright. Anyone out in No Man's Land would be lit right up.
"Sergeant Campbell hasn't come back yet, sir," the sentry says. Bradford is momentarily embarrassed that he can't remember the man's name.
There's another flare and then a burst of machine-gun fire. The sentry doesn't even flinch. Bradford takes the periscope and uses it to scan across No Man's Land looking for human shapes. The ground is littered with bodies, and in the shadows from the dying light of the flare, some of them seem to move.
"Bertie," he hisses, waving at Cuthbertson, who is still standing in the trench, probably waiting for him to finish up so they can go play cards. "Come up here and tell me what you see."
Cuthbertson sighs, climbs up onto the step next to Bradford, and takes the periscope. A shell whistles overhead, dropping onto No Man's Land in a cloud of dirt and (Bradford fears) body parts.
"What do you see? Is anyone moving out there?"
"I can't tell," Cuthbertson says. He leans away from the periscope, rubs his eyes, and looks through it again. "No. Nothing's moving."
words: 1089
total words: 25,350
note: it must have really sucked to have gotten buried by a falling trench wall. people did die that way, tho.
So for now, it's another few days in the front-line trench, with the mud and the rats and the crowded conditions and the constant shelling, stand to and scouting parties and trench repair and trying to keep his men from going mad.
Perhaps he's been lucky – no one has cracked up completely yet, although he's been keeping an eye on Lt Farrell, one of the platoon commanders, who seems a bit shaky and not entirely all there.
One night Bradford is sitting in his company HQ – a small but fairly watertight dugout, with two bunkbeds and a desk and chair – writing in his diary while his second in command, a young captain named Harris, is off inspecting the men. He can hear the booming of shells and the rattle of machine-gun fire, and then Cuthbertson pokes his head in and says "I was looking for you – we need another man for cards."
Bradford raises an eyebrow at him.
"My quartermaster found me a pack of cards," Cuthbertson goes on, "and we need something to pass the time. One can't spend one's entire night pacing up and down the line. Well, maybe you can." He grins.
Cuthbertson is always extraordinarily cheerful, Bradford writes in his diary. I don't know how he does it.
"I should tell Captain Harris where I've gone," he says, "in case he comes looking for me."
"Isn't it his job to look for you?"
"It shouldn't be."
"Come on, Harry, come talk with me and Purcell about something besides the war. If we're lucky he might regale us with tales of his days as a Westminster choirboy."
Well, at least he won't be alone. His platoon commanders are all out in the trench – and Sergeant Campbell is off with a scouting party – and he's not quite sure where his company quartermaster has gotten to. Scrounging up something for the men, hopefully. So he'll play cards with Cuthbertson and Purcell and, if possible, talk about things that aren't the war.
His and Cuthbertson's trek through the trenches to A Company headquarters is cut short by a shell landing half in the barbed wire in front of the parapet and half in a sap, causing a landslide into the listening post and half-burying the men in it. Bradford can hear someone yell "Stretcher bearers!" as he and Cuthbertson reach the mouth of the sap where it connects to the front-line trench. Bradford is pretty sure they're with B Company now, and it's not his own men who are drowning in mud or picking themselves up from the trench floor, where they threw themselves when they heard the shell coming.
"Where's your trench tool?" Bradford demands of the closest soldier. He points down the sap, now half-full of mud. "Start digging." Someone is already scrabbling through the mud to reach the men at the end of it, who seem to be struggling to get free. There's yelling and shouting and Bradford recognizes an officer from B Company who starts giving orders. Two stretcher bearers struggle down the front-line trench with their stretcher.
"We can take it from here, Captains," one of them tells Bradford and Cuthbertson. It's a polite way of telling them to move it, they're in the way. They move. As much as Bradford wants to help, and as much as he hates seeing men buried in mud by a shell explosion, they're not his men and he needs to get out of the stretcher bearers' way so they can do their job.
Bradford and Cuthbertson head back towards C Company. They could probably go down a communication trench to the support trench and cut across behind the front line and around the now-destroyed sap and the men being dug out of it, but Bradford feels a need to see his own men and make sure they're all ok. It's a strange reaction, he admits to himself, more like a mother worried about her children than an officer with his men. But to be honest, sometimes he does feel like a mother to them, privates and NCOs alike. They're still his responsibility.
"Are you dragging me along on inspection with you?" Cuthbertson asks.
"You can go back to your own company if you like," Bradford tells him. "I don't want to be trapped inside a dugout if it's hit by a shell."
"Claustrophobia." Cuthbertson nods in understanding. Bradford isn't quite sure that's what it is, but he isn't going to argue. "But as you can see, we can be hit just as easily outside." He nudges Bradford's shoulder. "Think of it this way – if we are hit by a shell, at least now you won't die alone."
Bradford isn't exactly comforted.
He climbs up onto the step to talk to a sentry, and while they're standing there the Germans send up a flare. Bradford doesn't even have to be looking through the sentry's periscope to see it, it's that close and bright. Anyone out in No Man's Land would be lit right up.
"Sergeant Campbell hasn't come back yet, sir," the sentry says. Bradford is momentarily embarrassed that he can't remember the man's name.
There's another flare and then a burst of machine-gun fire. The sentry doesn't even flinch. Bradford takes the periscope and uses it to scan across No Man's Land looking for human shapes. The ground is littered with bodies, and in the shadows from the dying light of the flare, some of them seem to move.
"Bertie," he hisses, waving at Cuthbertson, who is still standing in the trench, probably waiting for him to finish up so they can go play cards. "Come up here and tell me what you see."
Cuthbertson sighs, climbs up onto the step next to Bradford, and takes the periscope. A shell whistles overhead, dropping onto No Man's Land in a cloud of dirt and (Bradford fears) body parts.
"What do you see? Is anyone moving out there?"
"I can't tell," Cuthbertson says. He leans away from the periscope, rubs his eyes, and looks through it again. "No. Nothing's moving."
words: 1089
total words: 25,350
note: it must have really sucked to have gotten buried by a falling trench wall. people did die that way, tho.
