So if you're still interested by now, I cordially invite you back to 1917, on the Western Front of a particular war. I leave you with a couple guys from the British Expeditionary Force, and their hardships at:
"Stop moving, or we're dead men!" he shouted at me. All I could do short of slitting my own throat was to lie as flat as humanly possible, save a slight kicking in my right foot. How could I not do that? Not only were the artillery shells of the Austrians soaring over us in an unpleasant manner, and their respective machinegun nests were unceasing in their firing, but I was starting to get an extremely bad case of trench-foot. That particular affliction never seemed to deter Jack, however, as he continued to do his job of rationalized murder. Why I had volunteered for service still eluded me. The stench of death meanwhile had kept me quite awake to the reality of this war - a reality that was somehow misplaced in the posters of the infantry proudly marching, rifles high.
"Get'cha book out," Jack ordered as he leveled his rifle, "I got a shot." As I fumbled my little notebook out of my satchel and opened to Jack's page just as I heard the deafening crack of another high-powered projectile flying off to take yet another Alliance life. With that shot, his kill count (or in his words, his "score") was at thirty-four. The numbers didn't look to be slowing down either. Jack pulled back the bolt, ejected the spent round from the rifle, returned the bolt to its resting position, took aim, and I had to jot down yet another confirmed kill for the man. "Okay, let's go," he told me, and we displaced for a new position.
As we ran to our new firing position, I could see the rest of our Company bravely lifting their heads out of the earth to shoot, or clutching their heads as they sat in the earth. Either way, I was not all too interested in joining them just then.
"Where are we headed?" I asked Jack, "Are we going into that new trench on the right?" Immediately Jack scoffed,
"Not if you still value your head. That trench is much too close to their machineguns. We're setting up behind the parapet next to that trench." The moment he mentioned that hill I immediately became more physically sick than I already was. Not only was the aforementioned hill in the Godforsaken No-Man's Land, but it had already become quite a popular target for the Austrian artillery. The bodies of concussed British snipers (and spotters) still lay half-buried in the mud around the ridge.
The two of us trudged to the southern trenches, and found a large line of infantry connecting their bayonets to their rifles. Others had also decided to attach their sharpened trench trowels to their belts for later. In the distance the thunderous clap of shell bombardment made its presence known to all. Suddenly our position had me slightly worried.
"We're not jumping the trench with them too, are we?" I asked Jack weakly.
"No, not today," was his simple reply. That's when he added, "We're only running to the ridge. The rest is up to them." I drank deeply from my canteen as the officer blew his whistle. Jack had to grab me by the collar to remind me we had to climb out of the trench as well. With that, a good block of young life ran into the kill-zone, each one in a sort of prayer involving screaming bloody hell. All I could pray for is that I'd survive the ten-meter trip to the ridge.
Jack dove into the mud and took an overview of the trenches. I followed suit, falling to the moist ground and slowly inching my eyes over the mound. The brave souls were slowly being dissected by machinegun fire, and only about a third of them actually got to leap into the Austrian trenches. The second wave of men proved to be slightly luckier, as they charged towards inevitability. Our boys did seem to be fairing rather well, and I could only wish them the best of luck as I spat out drops of dirt that somehow managed to find my lips.
"Get the book out." Jack calmly said. I got my notebook in writing position just as he told me with that half-smile of his that "the unlucky bastard took it through the eye!" I tallied the shot as Jack reloaded. "Alright, let's go." The two of us crawled through the miniature valley we had been blessed with (and I use that term very loosely) and took a new position next to a limb-less British sniper team. My foot started twitching slightly again. "Damn it," Jack said, "I still can't see the officers!" I peeked over the rancid bodies and could only see a cloud of dust and debris left behind the merciless trench leap from before. I re-questioned my sanity for taking up my present position. "We gotta get movin'." I couldn't help but feel a little better that we were on the move again - save the fact we were still moving towards the Austrian trenches.
"Crater," Jack said simply. He motioned for us to get into the mud bunker one of the guns had opened up for - I really had no idea whose guns may have done it. I was making slow progress towards the small crater, starting to feel confident that my tortoise-approach would sustain me. Jack didn't quite think so, and he grabbed me vigorously by the helmet-strap and yanked me into the hole. A sweep of machinegun bullets drilled a neat line across our tracks of pressed earth. "You still value your head or what?" I could only nod slightly.
"I'm gonna die," I said to myself quietly under my breath, "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die . . ."
"Easy, will ya?" was Jack's reply. "Now just calm down and get the book out . . . we're gonna get us a gunner." I continued to lie in the tiny pit as Jack slowly crawled over me to take a firing position. His knees dug harshly into my midsection as he made his way to the mouth of the crater. I just tried to get the notebook out of the satchel without raising my hands too high. Handling the pencil taped to the small piece of string attached to the booklet, I awaited Jack's shot under the flights of bullets, shells, and a single greying arm that gently hung above my head like some kind of especially morbid chandelier.
"Hey," he says to me, "get your leg to stop moving." I looked down my body and sure enough, my foot was causing Jack's entire firing platform to shake slightly. I knew enough about snipers that everything had to be perfect for them. They wouldn't fire until they knew nothing under their control would be a liability. They would not move a muscle, nor would they let breath pass through their mouths; they wouldn't even let their hearts beat if they were taking a shot. I shifted myself over uncomfortably to get out from under Jack. He then proceeded to lie along the slight incline of the crater to steady his rifle. I simply lay there, waiting for the loud crack of the rifle. It came soon enough. "Rack me up another gunner, kid!"
By now our forces had taken the Austrian trenches and another wave of soldiers were marching to the newly acquired fortification. I half expected more thundering of English guns to cover their advance, as I had heard wonders of such tactics from the Canadians at Vimy Ridge earlier in the war. Jack was also in a slight awe of these soldiers, for he had heard a Canadian infantryman held the current record for most kills by a sniper. I suppose it was his intention to claim that title himself. As I thought of all this, I suddenly realised the troops marching past us. Jack told me we were going with them to get a new position.
I began getting up to run with the other soldiers, but Jack simply pulled me back down to the soft earth.
"Guess that one's my fault, sorry bloke," he said to me, "I meant we were gonna move when they got here, but not with them." I was still slightly confused when he started to crawl right, down a small ridge between the trenches. Though we had run through theirs, they still stretched far to either side of the gap, and there were still plenty of ways a guy could get killed - especially from behind.
"Hey, what's my count at?" Jack asked me.
"Forty-seven." He smiled.
"Well, I'm about to make it forty-eight." I saw him readjust his telescopic sight and level his Enfield. He was pointing off into the distance into the thick of the Austrians running towards the gap in the trench. He fired, and I put down the tally before he reported - he never missed. "Damn grunts!" he swore, "the bastard ran right in front of that officer . . . we gotta get moving again." We continued to crawl along the ridge until we took a slight pause. Ahead of us lay another kill-zone - another place where the Austrians had simply lay waste to our men. The bodies were scattered everywhere, cut to pieces by high-calibre bullets.
I had never allowed myself to believe that bullets could do much more than put holes in people - this no longer living diorama clearly proved otherwise. I vomited a pool to my side as we neared what was once a proud soldier fighting for the empire. Now it was just a headless mass of bloodied flesh and sinew. Another body told the tale of a young man who had been shot a number of times through the front and had let the machineguns tear out his back in the process. Others gave glimpses of men who had still dared to crawl forward, clinging to their orders until they succumbed to the bleeding. I'll never know how he did it, but Jack simply looked back to me and said,
"Hey, save your lunch for later. Now come on, we're gonna crawl through the dead Limeys now!" Once he said that, I almost vomited again.
We finally took root right in the nucleus of the carnage. Jack steadied his rifle, and I took out the book. I just took down the numbers, trying to breathe in as little as possible. Those minutes seemed like hours . . . . . finally, Jack told me that we were going to get out of the mess. I was more than happy to oblige.
A single bullet drove itself into the side of one of the dead soldiers lying next to us.
"Sniper!" I cried.
"Where'dit come from?"
"I don't know!" Jack moved no more than the surrounding corpses. He found cursing to himself to be a much better outcome than getting shot, I suppose. I had been with Jack long enough by now to know that we probably had about five to ten seconds before the Austrian sniper would get another shot. Jack readied his own rifle and peered over the ridge as low as he could.
"Damn it! I don't see any Goddamn . . ." Jack never had a chance to see it coming - the bullet entered the back of his head and he slumped abruptly. I dropped low as far into the ridge as I could as I looked behind me. In the far distance I could see two men lying in the mud. They had circled around No-Man's Land as much as we had, and had ended up at our rear flanks. I looked for cover, but the ridge only really covered me from the Austrian side, and to go over that would mean death by machineguns. I decided to just move in the opposite way of the Austrian sniper team. Unluckily for me, when Jack was shot, he fell over onto my frantically kicking foot. My foot then snaked its way through Jack's rifle strap. I was trapped, and my franticness was getting me nowhere . . . the bullet went through my shoulder and out my side, below my ribs . . . . .
I finally accepted that my best plan of action was to just lie still and wait for them to pass. More or less, it seemed to work, as the team didn't fire at us anymore. This relaxed me, and my foot began to slow down its kicking. It also looked as if Jack had come across the same conclusions as I had, and was also keeping as still as he could. I felt it was worth looking at my booklet while we waited for the sniper to leave; Jack's tally was fifty-three. Surely that had to be some sort of record. I looked to Jack's direction again - he seemed content with his score and looked to have no more interest in beating the Canadian sniper's record. As for me, I was a little disappointed that Jack's endeavor was over; I had really thought he would break a record. But, I suppose all good things must come to and end - besides, if all else fails, I know of a couple of guys who just added two kills to an ever-growing tally . . . . .
