Chapter 16. Thrown away

  Trying to return to his regiment by train, Winston found the

  last station was 20 miles short of the front. He caught a lift with

  a munitions truck, then walked the last 8 miles.

  Beside a row of split and shattered oak trees he stopped at a

  makeshift military cemetery where he saw a horse drawn

  cart full of bodies. Open pits already held rows of the dead that

  were covered with lime.

  The ground where Winston stood was littered with acorns.

  He picked up a handful. "What a waste."

  *

  When Winston reached the regiment outpost, he was surprised

  to find Harry Patch had volunteered to be a stretcher bearer.

  "What made you do that Harry?"

  "Look around Winston, how many familiar faces do you see."

  Winston didn't recognise anyone. "What happened?"

  "We spent days going forward with heavy losses, and gained about

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  500 yards, and dug in. We held the line for almost a week until there

  was an almighty German counter attack. After a day and night of

  fighting, the regiment retreated to the very same position

  we started from - here."

  Winston felt sick. "Where are all the lads then?" .

  "What's left of them is rotting out in the field." Harry said.

  "Unpack your kit if you want to Winston, but don't get too

  comfortable. We're coming off the line tomorrow and moving

  up to Arras."

  "For another push?" Winston asked.

  "They're not saying, but I got a bad feeling about it already."

  *

  The soldiers moved through the village of Arras under heavy

  fire and crossed the river at a bridge the retreating Germans

  had tried to blow up. The stretcher bearer squads followed in

  the second wave of troop movement.

  Winston and Harry took cover behind a broken wall on the

  riverbank and waited for their turn to cross.

  "My Father would of wept if he'd seen what the Germans have

  done to these orchards. Why chop down a hundred year old apple

  tree if you don't have to? It doesn't make any sense."

  Artillery shells whipped through sky overhead, and in return

  German shells burst around them sending showers of steel

  shrapnel in all directions.

  The bridge was a tangled mass of ironwork that had fallen

  into the river. Planks had been rigged to what was left of the

  beams making the river crossing possible, but it was slow and

  dangerously exposed.

  "We're up." Harry said.

  The planked walkway sloped down to the river before it climbed

  to the other side. As they crossed Winston saw bodies floating in

  the water, held against what was left of the bridge by the current.

  Harry stopped and stared.

  "What are you doing Harry? Keep going."

  There was a rolling boom of shell bursts behind them, one directly

  over where they'd taken cover. Winston heard the shouts of

  wounded men. "We've got to keep going Harry."

  Harry nodded vacantly.

  When they reached the other side Winston saw that Harry

  was pale and shaking. "Are you alright?"

  "Did you see the bodies of the children in the water?"

  Winston wished he hadn't.

  "This could be a stream back home in the Midlands, and those

  children could of been from a local farming family."

  "That's why we're here." Winston said.

  Harry hung his head, "It's part of me now."

  "What is Harry?"

  "Hatred Winston, I can feel it boiling inside me like a fever.

  I've never hated anyone or anything in my life, but when I saw

  those children, the only thing I wanted to do was kill every

  single German on the face of the earth."

  "We're in the middle of a War." Winston said.

  Harry took an officer's pistol out of his tunic pocket.

  "Where did you get that from?"

  "I can feel it poisoning every part of me "

  Harry put the the barrel of the gun in his mouth.

  "Don't." yelled Winston.

  *