Escape from Hell

Chapter 1

Walter pressed himself into the mud and held his ears tight. The noise alone was all-enveloping, allowing no thoughts.

His eyes were shut tight, his lips pressed together, every orifice clenched. He was rolled into a ball in a futile attempt to protect his vital organs as he was spattered with earth falling from the sky. His elbows tucked against his knees, he lay still.

The screaming of the shells and the explosions continued around him, rocking the very planet. He was pelted by rocks and clods of soil even though he was surely surrounded by cliffs of wooden palisades with sold ground behind.

Walter became aware of a voice shouting, penetrating his terror. It was a voice that could not be denied; his training had programmed his brain to obey without question. The voice was telling him to stand, to do his duty.

He was aware that his duty was to die for his King and country, his duty was also to do that simple thing whilst performing whatever task that the voice had set. The current task was to stand and face the enemy, hold his rifle and shoot, to watch, to report back to the voice.

Automatically he straightened, opened his eyes and found his rifle in the mud. He stood, made sure that his helmet was firmly on his head. As if that flimsy tin could stop a bullet. It was ridiculous to believe it, but he did all the same because the voice told him so. It might block one of the pebbles falling, but any bullet or a shell fragment would pass straight through.

Some of his mates carried a talisman; a cigarette case or a bible in a breast pocket -- stories abounded of such items saving a life when struck by flying metal but logic told him that this was ridiculous; any self-respecting bullet wouldn't even notice a cigarette case. When it was time to die, he would die.

He made sure that the weapon was clean where it counted and stood, leaning forwards so that he could peer between two rocks towards the enemy. The voice quietened in response.

He dared not to glance back at the sergeant. His job was to face the enemy; the sergeant would be quick to remind him that he had seen him before, had not forgotten his gentle motherly features - there was no need to refresh his memory in that regard.

The position gave him a poor view but that didn't matter. Others were further along the trench filling in the gaps. A fresh mound of earth had sprung up to his side; it was that explosion that had thrown him backwards into the trench, that place of relative safety. The landscape was obscured by the smoke of battle anyway. If an enemy had appeared before him he would have mere seconds to react.

Walter tipped his helmet down over his eyes to increase its pathetic protection and held his rifle against his shoulder. Still the screaming munitions exploded around him.

* * *

Ages later he felt a tap on his shoulder. Relieved, he stepped back for his place to be taken by another soldier who leaned into the earth, weapon already braced. Walter crouched down into the trench and scurried along it to a dugout, a roofed section where a mug of tea was handed to him.

The shelling had now eased off and Walter was able to assemble his thoughts. A brief period of months before he had been an average man selling insurance door to door in the North of England. He was still young but had no great physique. Inevitably, eventually, he had been called up and been sent to an army camp in Wales for training. The army had filled him out, developed muscles and given him a level of fitness that his schooldays had never provided. Even whilst at the front, every few days there was time away from the line and duties included forced route marches; endless tramping across the countryside and back to camp.

They called this 'The Great War' -- sometimes in the press it was the 'War to End All Wars'. There would never be another war they said in the papers, after this. Most likely because there'll be no-one left to fight it, he thought.

He had been taught how to comb his hair, how to brush his teeth, how to polish his boots. The boots that were now soaked and smothered in mud - and would never take a shine again. He, a married man had been taught how to dress the army way, go to the toilet the army way, kill another man the army way.

A man in his squad had died during the training; he had been buried in the local churchyard in Wales even before his widow had arrived. She did not have the funds to pay for the body to be transported home so she went away by herself -- the Sergeant had explained that the army was his home and family now.

Possibly he would never see his wife again, sweet innocent pretty Agnes with her curly blonde hair, whose picture he carried in his cigarette case safe from the damp. Agnes with her sweet smile, set off by a slightly misaligned tooth. Agnes with the warm thighs and soft breasts that she had allowed him to see on their wedding night. A thick thatch of dark hair on her belly, wisps of lighter curls under her arms. Oh, Agnes...

They had known each other for only a short period; a brief courtship abruptly curtailed by politicians in foreign lands. His betters and rulers, whom he could not question.

They had gone together to a photographer's studio when he had received his call-up. The man had a wooden camera on a tripod and a black hood that went over his head. He had taken their shillings (and photograph) without fuss; a line of similar couples were waiting in a queue for their likenesses to be captured. They had returned a few days later to collect their squares of paper bearing stiff unemotional portraits. There had been no time, nor the money for many attempts at an artistic pose or to adjust an expression.

They had married hastily, within the week. A borrowed wedding gown for Agnes, just a few friends and their immediate families present to witness the miserable event.

Now he had been sent to Belgium to prevent the Kaiser from invading England and bayonetting all of the nation's babies. So here he was in a poorly built trench with wooden planks that were both holding the sides and lying in the mud so that the men could walk more easily, together with a disparate bunch of men who were mostly from the same city.

They were replacements for men who had been killed in the same spot -- men who themselves had been replacements for other men who had been killed in exactly the same spot. Men who had done their duty.

They had landed in a French port and a railway train had conveyed them to somewhere in Flanders, a place of boggy river valleys in Belgium which traversed the countryside. Some folks talked about 'hills' and 'ridges' between the valleys but in truth there was nothing worthy of either description.

His new mates were servants, farmers, builders -- people with whom he would never ordinarily have associated with. He had found that they were generally good sorts and would protect him from harm given the chance, just as he would now find himself helping to protect them.

Walter sipped his tea from the hot tin mug that burned his lips. The second lieutenant, the officer in charge of his sergeant who had raised him from the mud by sheer personality, gave him a paper.

By and by the rest of the squad assembled and they made their way along the communication trench to the billet area.

After supper he had time to clean his kit and a couple of hours of recreation. He joined his mates at the bar nearby, where a beer could be consumed and a game of darts played. The officers had access to a hotel but as a Private he was not allowed there. He had no desire in any case to associate with officers.

The hotel had upstairs rooms where French ladies plied a business much partaken by the men far from home. The bar had an alleyway at the rear where a similar trade was transacted at a much reduced cost. However he was newly married and had little desire to contract any disease. Such things were rampant amongst the men, although it was punishable by the regiment to catch a 'dose' despite the new drugs available to the medics.

After a couple of pints of ale Walter retired to his billet.

In the morning the men were awakened by the Corporal; it was still dark. It was time to start all over again. Time to go through morning ablutions the army way, dress the army way, march along the trenches back to the line the army way. The regular morning artillery barrage commenced and Walter hunched his head down into his shoulders as he marched. It wasn't concentrated fire -- the sort that heralded an attack. It was routine, random shooting that both sides indulged in every day to make sure that everyone was awake.

The different types of shell had their own sounds and effects and consequently nicknames. There were Black Marias, Daisy Cutters, Moaning Minnies and many more. They said that you never heard the one that was going to kill you but he had no idea how anyone could test that theory. He stepped over a puddle and continued marching though the noise and smoke.

* * *

"Soldier, check the alley." Walter was confused. The Sergeant was giving him an order but it made no sense.

"The alley back to the Company HQ. Check it for men." The Sergeant clarified his instruction; presumably he meant the 'com' trench, the communication route that he was familiar with. "If you see any men there, tell them to report here. Ask the guard if they've seen any alley men. Be sure to say just that."

Walter looked around the shelter; everyone was busying themselves with their kit and weapon cleaning.

He pulled his helmet down and walked along the duckboards and into the communication trench. Seeing a sentry he called out to him. "Excuse me, have you seen an alley man?"

The sentry looked at him and paused. After a while he replied, "Son, if I saw any alleymen here, I would let them know about it. Who sent you to ask me?"

"My Sergeant told me to check."

"Well you come closer here now."

Walter approached the man who said quietly "I believe that someone is having some fun. An Alleyman is a German. The French, see? Allemagne, means Germany. You haven't seen the date I expect - 1st of April. Now get along with you back to your section before something happens out here."

* * *

The soldier opened his eyes. The world was quiet -- no, it was buzzing. He was being rocked from side to side but all he could see was redness. He felt a jolt and a wooden pole was against his side. There was a searing pain in his leg and he closed his eyes again.

* * *

Walter tried to open his eyes but could not. He was lying on a soft bed, not the lumpy mattress of the camp. He moved his arms and was able to, but did not have the energy. He relaxed and tried to move his legs and they moved freely, waving in the air weirdly without restriction.

A female voice spoke, telling him to sleep. Like a good soldier he obeyed.

* * *

He woke again and stirred. He could hear voices all around in the darkness, male voices. Then a voice calling out for a nurse.

A cool, gentle hand touched his shoulder. A female voice with an Irish accent spoke, "Walter, you're in hospital, can you hear me?"

Walter tried to reply but his mouth was dry and no sound came.

The nurse spoke again, "You're doing fine, move your elbow if you can understand."

The cool hand left his shoulder and took his left arm. He moved it.

"You've been wounded, you'll be taken back to Blighty soon. Back with your family, now won't that be fine. Now open your mouth and I'll give you a drink, you'll feel better."

He then felt water, refreshing on his parched tongue. He thought to himself; Blighty -- England. That meant a serious wound, but he was alive. He would be envied by his mates. Some of the men at the front would wave a foot in the air above the trench when the sergeant wasn't around to see, hoping to have toes shot off. This guaranteed a return to England even though everyone would suspect that such a wound was deliberately inflicted.

Had he heard the one that killed him? He wasn't dead so it didn't count. Anyway he couldn't remember anything. Except that one second he had been talking to a sentry about how he'd been sent on a fools errand, the next he was waking up, now he was in hospital.

Well that was one funny jape and no mistake.

The nurse spoke again, "Your eyes are bandaged. The doctor will speak to you now."

Then she was gone and a male voice spoke, brusque and to the point. An army voice. "Private, you've lost your legs in the shelling. Your head has taken some blast and your eyes are bandaged but should heal in a while. Your hands were burned so they're bandaged as well. And you've damaged your right testicle; we'll see later about that, but it's not going to kill you. Any questions? Good."

And as quickly as that, the man left.

* * *

Walter spent the next week lying in his bed, the nurse seeing to his needs. She cleaned him, fed him and held conversations long enough for the ward sister to raise a quizzical eyebrow. The other men also talked to him and explained any goings-on.

Soon it was time to leave for England. He was loaded into an ambulance with a noisy engine and stiff suspension that jolted him to a nearby railway station. Then it was a train and a ship to safety. His war was over.

* * *

He arrived at a manor house on the Welsh border. His fellow casualties had kept him informed of the rolling countryside, the hills in the distance and railway stations with unpronounceable place names. When he had been a child he had seen from afar such vast houses where earls or lords might live but had never been inside one. Now this house had been taken over as a hospital but only officers were inside the building; mere soldiers were housed in a massive tented encampment that had been erected in the grounds.

His new regular nurse had a soft lilting Welsh accent, much softer than the clipped voices of the northern area where he had been trained. He envisaged her as young, slim and attractive. She had a sexy husk to her voice and he could recognise her just from the sound of her breath as she approached.

* * *

Chapter 2

Gwen had grown up in a mining village in a valley near Pontypool. Her father was a miner, her two brothers were also both 'underground'. Her maternal grandparents were dead, of the consumption - tuberculosis the doctors called it - which ravaged the close-knit communities. Her father's mother lived in the next street, caring for her husband who walked with a stick following a rockfall and coughed endlessly as a result of a lifetime working in thick dust and no ventilation.

There was plenty of work now for miners and the grinding poverty should have been relieved except that the mine owners were forever cutting pay to increase their own riches. It was a disgrace, because coal was so essential for the war effort and everyone knew that anthracite and steam coal from South Wales was the best coal in the world for ships.

So she had decided to escape from the poverty and filth, the endless black dust and grey mist that collected in the valley. She missed her family and the mountainsides terribly but not the anticipation of a distant mine hooter sounding the signal of an underground disaster, a signal for the women to gather at the pithead and the off-shift men to rush underground in the face of poisonous gasses, fires and roof falls. All too often it would be a futile attempt to rescue their 'butties', their workmates who were already crushed or burnt.

There was little to keep her there and the advertisements for women to become nurses or ambulance drivers, to assist with the vast numbers of wounded servicemen had promised a valuable existence with a reliable income. So with precious little training and less experience she found herself under the supervision of a stern ward sister and a flinty matron, taking care of wrecked lives in a canvas township.

She recognised some aspects of military life. There was little formal discipline in the lives of miners of course, but they looked after their own fiercely and organised sports and competitions at every opportunity. Rugby, darts, cards; you name it and they played it competitively. Even when drinking in the bar in the village, there was a pecking order in who was the best, the quickest, the most stoical. In the army they played football instead of rugby -- and played it endlessly. Even in the ward they kicked balls of paper about, using bedsteads as goalposts.

On occasion she saw inside the big house where the grandeur was still to be seen despite much of the furniture having been removed to make room for beds for officers. The operating theatre had been established in the downstairs library and the elderly doctor attended once a week to cut chunks from young men's bodies.

The worst cases though were the gassed soldiers. Wracking coughs filled the air as the men -- boys really -- drowned slowly, blinded and helpless. She couldn't look at them without feeling sick.

Gwen had general ward duties but she also had her own special patients allocated to her. Most of them were well on the road to recuperation and were allowed evening passes out to the local bar. Although missing the odd limb they helped each other around and generally had a whale of a time.

The patient that took most of her attention was a terrible case of injuries by shelling. Walter had been a good looking lad she could tell, but was really down in the mouth when he arrived. Not surprising for a newly married man who should have had his entire life before him but now had a shattered body.

She talked endlessly with him, hardly mentioning his present situation or future prospects. The topics were their childhoods, films and theatre. Even politics and the war became subjects they could discuss; anything but his injuries.

She found that his mood improved as they spoke about their homes and childhoods. If he could forget for a moment his terrible situation the difference was immediately noticeable. Gradually he relaxed and they could share jokes, anecdotes and stories of their relatives. Eventually he was prepared for his young wife to visit.

* * *

Chapter 3

Walter came to enjoy their 'chats', a new word coming into vogue as the wartime vocabulary crossed into general usage. When he had first come across the word in France, 'chats' were the lice that thrived in the conditions of the trenches. When the soldiers picked through their uniform looking for the insects and gossiped amongst themselves it was called 'chatting'. How long ago was it? It seemed a lifetime but was only a couple of months.

Walter had endured weeks of operations on his wounds, to improve on the hurried actions of the army surgeon in the field hospital. He had learned to handle pain beyond description as the doctors cut and prodded his raw flesh. Now his leg stumps had been tidied and his burned hands re-dressed endlessly. His eyes were still useless although the doctors made hopeful noises for the future.

Worst of all for him -- but a minor matter for the doctor - was the loss of his right testicle. There had been no chance to save it in the end according to the doctor. And no matter how much the doctor assured him that the single remainder would provide all that a man needed, he remained unconvinced of its capabilities.

Another effect of the repeated procedures was that he now felt physically sick whenever a doctor approached as his body anticipated more torment.

He had not yet been reunited with Agnes; wartime transport was difficult and expensive for civilians. However he was confidant that that time would be soon come. Here the recuperating soldiers were issued with bright blue uniforms so that they could be distinguished from active servicemen -- and from those cowards avoiding conscription. Those more interested in profiteering whilst their countrymen were battling for their freedom.