A Long Day in No-Man's-Land

First World War: Scene of the Battle of La Craonne on 5/04/1917
Francois Flameng
Source

Louis started to lift his head then thought better of it, the air was alive with bits of metal seeking human flesh. There was a shell hole nearby and he wondered if he could make it there without being hit. He rolled in the mud, it was thick, almost a solid and it slowed his progress. As he got close, two hands reached out and pulled him in.

"Not safe out there, lad." It was the Baron who'd pulled him in.

Louis looked around, the shell hole was deep, filled with water to just below his feet. There were "things" in the water, things he didn't want to know. Things he knew had once been human, as alive as he still was. He wondered how long that state would last.

"Where is everybody?" Louis couldn't see any other men from his unit, were he and his sergeant the last ones left?

"Oh, they're around, somewhere. Whether they're still alive is another question. I saw the Lieutenant dive to the ground when the machine guns started, don't know if he was hit or not. I know at least two of our guys were killed outright. This attack was a stupid idea."

"How do you know they were killed?"

"Shot in the head, kills you every time, lad."

Louis shook his head, then curled into a ball and started to cry.

The Baron, whose real name was Henri de Neuville, looked at the young man with sympathy. There was nothing which could prepare a man for this sort of combat. Spending long hours huddled in a muddy trench, wondering when the artillery would come. Then periodically rushing forward into the chattering machine guns across the way when the high command decided that an attack was necessary.

The Baron's family had been serving France for a long time. His great-grandfather had marched with Napoléon into Russia, he had not marched out. His grandfather had fought against the Prussians in 1870. His father, serving as a magistrate, had not been required to wear the uniform of France.

The family was not of the nobility, minor or otherwise, so his nickname was ironic. His mother, still a staunch republican, would spit fury had she heard him referred to as "the Baron." She blamed Bonaparte for all of France's problems, though the man had been dead for many years.

A scream brought him out of his revery.

"I think it's the Lieutenant." Louis said, pointing towards the enemy lines, trying to wipe the tears from his face.

The Baron nodded, then called out, "Lieutenant! Are you hit?"

The voice answered, "No, but I'm with Pierre and Marcel, they are both wounded and we're pinned down. If we move the damned Boche start shooting."

"Sit tight, Sir, we'll have to wait for nightfall."

"If we do that," the man yelled back, "Pierre might not make it, he's badly wounded."

The Baron shook his head, "If we try and move, none of us will make it. Sit tight, Lieutenant, it's all we can do."

"How long until nightfall, Sergeant?"

The Baron looked at Louis, "A long time, lad. But there's nothing for it, if we leave this hole, the Boche will shoot at us, if the Lieutenant and those boys leave their hole, well, they'll be shot at. Best we can hope for is a follow up attack by our lads or night."

"Do you think our guys will attack again?"

"It's possible, depends on why we attacked."

"Don't we attack to try and punch through their line?"

"Not necessarily, sometimes we attack here to get their attention while the main attack goes in somewhere else. Sometimes we attack because the politicians back in Paris clamor for 'something to be done' and the generals attack to make the politicians happy. It's a vicious cycle lad, and we're caught up in the middle of it."

Louis nodded, he was starting to feel the cold. His greatcoat was coated with mud, as were his trousers, his boots looked as if they were made of mud. He felt cold to the bone.

"Are we going to die here, Sergeant?"

"Not if I can help it lad, not if I can help it."