‘Ah good! You’re here!’ said Robert looking up from the small table he was using as a desk. It was littered with papers and in the middle; a kerosene lantern cast its feeble yellow glow. A pile of filled envelopes stood at the far end of the table. Robert pointed to them. ‘I’m only about half done with them; there’s only a couple of lines in each, but I still can’t catch up.’
‘I doubt you ever will. Maybe I can help.’
‘I’d appreciate that. It’s hard to write to a grieving relation, particularly when I barely had time to meet the poor sods themselves before they were killed.’
‘I don’t think the words mean as much to them as being reassured that their loved ones didn’t die in vain.’
‘Didn’t they? I sometimes wonder myself.’
Richard could see that his cousin was depressed. The letter writing was extracting just as much of a toll on him as the fighting had. He watched as Robert shuffled among the papers before him. Extracting the one he was looking for, Robert placed it before his cousin, and handed him his pen. ‘Sign that,’ he said.
Richard read the short document. It was a handwritten agreement between the two of them, with Richard agreeing to forgo his rights to the water in the stream beside his farm. In exchange, he would receive the property rights to the land stretching from one arm of the stream to the other.
‘You’re sure you want to do this?’ asked Richard. ‘It’s a sizable amount of land.’
‘We haven’t used it for more than grazing for years. I want the lake; it’s become my whole focus.’
Richard nodded, taking up the pen and signing. Robert did as well, and a pair of passing soldiers were brought in to act as witnesses to the document.
‘I’ll post this off to our solicitor in Walton Village immediately, and I have another letter already prepared for groundsmen at home. I’ve given them instructions to start work as soon as they can. Hopefully, we’ll be out of the army before it’s completed, but I doubt it. Still, it will be something for us both to look forward to.’
One week later, in the hour before dawn, Robert was standing on a parapet, raised above the muddy bottom of the trench where his men waited, arms at the ready. He was high enough to be able to look over the top of the helmeted ranks of his men. Their bayonets attached, each man awaited the sound of Robert’s whistle in utter silence.
He risked a quick look over the lip of the trench and through a gap in the sandbags placed there. Just yards away, the earth was erupting as British artillery pounded the German lines, hoping to open up a gap in the defences that the infantry could capitalise on.
This time will be different, thought Robert, over the deafening roar of the exploding shells. This time we’ll have help ...
A half hour before dawn, the firing ceased, and Robert knew that the Germans, hiding in their deep bunkers to protect themselves from the barrage, were now returning to their firing positions, speedily setting up their machine guns. He could almost hear them.
Just then, he became aware of a new sound from behind the British trenches. It was a noise that he had only heard once before, from an object that had only ever seen from a distance. Turning around, he watched as the ugliest contraption imaginable trundled toward him.
Grey steel like a battleship, with machine guns sprouting, and a pair of enormous caterpillar tracks propelling it forward, nothing could stand in its way. It crushed the rolls of barbed wire stretched in its path, and simply ignored the deep craters made by the enemy artillery, sliding effortlessly over the top of them.
The men in the trenches below scattered to the sides, as the monster rolled over the top of their hiding place, and proceeded across no-man’s land.
Robert looked at his watch. Zero hour! He placed his whistle to his lips.
Up and down the line of trenches, whistles sounded, and the dirty khaki army climbed the ladders to reach the lip of the trenches, and then advanced into the living hell beyond ...
Across the divide, a German sniper peered through the lens of his Zeiss telescopic sights. He had seen movement behind the sandbags, and was awaiting his opportunity. As the troops poured out of the trenches before him, the sniper’s finger tensed slightly then relaxed, ignoring the soldiers. He was after officers, not enlisted men.
He watched as his target climbed over the sandbags, pistol in his hand, whistle in his lips. These markers told the sniper that this was an officer, and he took aim.
Shifting his aim slightly to allow for the man’s movements, the sniper squeezed the trigger evenly, feeling the rifle buck slightly, as the shot was made.
The shot took Robert in the centre of his forehead, throwing him backward over the sandbags, where his body came to rest, head in the mud, legs resting above the rest of his body against the mud wall at the bottom of the trench.
Richard was unaware of his cousin’s fate, as he was marshalling his men behind him. They took up positions behind the lumbering tank as it made its way toward the German lines.
With the enemy’s bullets ricocheting off the tank’s metal skin, Richard found that if he kept his men close to its rear, the tank would protect them from much of the machine-gun and rifle fire, while it dealt death and destruction to those who stood in its way.
They reached the German trenches with few casualties, where they threw hand grenades into the midst of the German troops below, while the tank’s machine guns decimated the enemy.
Richard led his men into the trenches, where the fighting became hand-to-hand, with the bayonets now coming into their own in the tight conditions.
Finally, the German officers began ordering their men to fall back.
The British pursued the enemy as they retreated, while the tank, and its crew, continued cutting down the grey uniformed figures, as they ran before it.
For months the two front lines had faced one another, with neither side being able to gain the upper hand. Now there was a breach, and the British were through. Now was the opportunity to roll up the enemy.
Falling in behind the tank once again, Richard and his remaining men helped push the enemy further and further backward. However, they were now past the line of trenches, and out in open ground. Now they were exposed, and the German artillery was ready. Instead of a wide line of deeply entrenched troops to attack, they now had exposed targets in the shape of the tank, and the men advancing behind it.
As the first shells landed around them, Richard realised that he had made a mistake. ‘ Get back to the trenches! ‘ he screamed at his men, as a second volley landed even closer to the tank.
The crew aboard the tank, realising that they were being targeted, ceased their chase, putting the tank into reverse and returned the way they had come as a third volley tore up the ground where they would have been. As the tank retreated, it kept pace with Richard and his men.
‘Get as far away from the tank as you can! That’s what the Germans are aiming at!’ screamed Richard.
Just then, a fourth salvo straddled the tank, and one shot scored a direct hit. The tank exploded in a mushroom of heat and energy, its metal plating turned to shrapnel that was cast far and wide.
Richard and his men were cut down like wheat before a scythe.
Seeing the tank destroyed, the German retreat was brought to a halt, and the officers rallied the men for a counterattack.
Not having had time to set up defensive positions, the British were forced out of their new positions, retreating once more to where they had begun the day, with nothing to show for their efforts, but a huge loss of life.
* * *
News of the deaths of Richard and Robert Brown reached Walton Village a week later.
Their solicitor reflected sadly on their