Eleven Eleven - By Paul Dowswell Page 0,10

the ‘Army Act’. This would lead to ‘trouble’, as he put it, and even ‘shooting at the hands of your own comrades’. He told them that fear was not a crime, but an inability to control that fear was a contagious disease that needed to be isolated and cured with the utmost severity. Will left the hall feeling terrified, and unwilling to catch the eye of any of his fellow recruits.

Next morning, on a breezy sunny day, they took the ferry across the Channel to Calais and then a short train journey to the huge training camp at Étaples. Here, the new arrivals were billeted right next to a Casualty Clearing Station while they awaited their first taste of the front line. This temporary hospital was a vast camp – taking up maybe half a square mile of tents and wooden huts.

They were immediately put to work stretchering the wounded off the trains that came in twice a day. The gas casualties were the worst. Gasping for breath, coughing up bloody lumps, their uniforms still stinking of the gas that had got them. Carrying the shell-blast victims was a nightmare too. They screamed every time they were moved, as shattered bones grated together. Right next door to the Casualty Clearing Station was a vast cemetery – thousands and thousands of graves. It might have been practical, but it was hardly a reassuring sight.

When he got to the Front and told Jim about the Clearing Station cemetery, his brother waved him away in scorn. ‘Toughen up, sunshine,’ he had said. ‘That’s nothing. When we came up through the reserve trenches for the big push at the Somme, they marched us past two open graves, great big ones, dug that morning for what was to come. I yelled out “Eyes left” to stop the men seeing them, but I don’t think I fooled anyone.’

Now, as Will lay on the same cold, dark earth, he tried not to think about those burial pits, and all the men whose bodies had been placed in them. He had been three months now at the Front. Every minute, every hour, was a battle against the bullet, shell or bayonet that fate had written his name on.

CHAPTER 5

3.00 a.m.

Axel Meyer was relieved to be marching away from the blazing wreckage. Amid the charred wood and burning oil there was a horrible smell that he did not recognise. It was sweet and putrid and a little like roast pork or beef. With a jolt he realised that it must be burning bodies.

‘Where d’you think we’re going?’ he asked his new friend.

‘I don’t know,’ Erich replied. ‘I imagine to some sort of barracks, or at least somewhere where we can get something to eat.’

‘Silence in the ranks!’ shouted the Feldwebel who was escorting them forward – a stern-looking man of around thirty, who towered over most of the soldiers here. They had already seen him kicking and punching some of the men. He came down the line and grabbed Erich hard by the arm. ‘If I have to tell you two again, it’ll be Anbinden for the both of you.’

‘What the hell is Anbinden?’ whispered Axel when the Feldwebel went back to the head of the line.

Erich rubbed his arm. It felt as if it had been in a vice. ‘They tie you to a tree or a post or something like that,’ he said, ‘and leave you for several hours where you might get hit by enemy fire.’

Axel shuddered.

He hoped Erich was right about the barracks. He hadn’t had a bath or a shower for several days now, and he felt seedy. Everyone smelled of sweat and mothballed feldgraue – field-grey – uniforms and boot polish, so he wasn’t bothered about that. He just thought having a decent wash would perk him up a bit. At the moment he was so tired he felt as if he was wading through porridge. He thought, with a desperate longing, of his feather bed back in Wansdorf.

There was some muttering up front, strange noises. Suddenly the Feldwebel called the column to a halt and hauled a soldier from the ranks. He flung him to the ground and pointed a pistol at him. ‘You have one final opportunity to prove your worth to the Fatherland,’ he said. ‘If I hear you, or any of the rest of you, bleating, I will shoot you without hesitation.’ He dragged the terrified soldier back to his feet, then kicked him hard in the backside towards