Winter on the Line

Le Jus
Ernest Gabard
Source

Louis stifled the urge to laugh when the man ahead of him slipped on the ice and fell on his backside. The stew he was carrying spilled out, no laughing matter when Louis saw the looks on his squad mates' faces. A warm meal was a treat, losing a portion of it was bad for morale.

The Baron shoved his way out of the dugout, shooing the rookies back inside. "Come on, lads, get the rest in here before it's cold!"

The platoon had received replacements during the reserve period, they were, to a man, young and raw. While there was no substitute for experience, the Baron had worked hard getting the new boys ready for what they were facing. Still and all, Louis realized, unless their luck was better than most, half would be dead or wounded in a fortnight when their turn on the line ran out.

Once everyone was in the dugout, Louis looked around. The Baron was spooning out the stew and was visibly pleased that the portions were ample enough, even though quite a bit had been lost when Pierre had taken his tumble. That's when Louis produced his surprise.

"Boys, wouldn't a bit of fresh bread go nicely with this?"

The Baron shot him a warning look, it wasn't nice to disturb the new men's hopes. But, with a flourish, Louis produced two fresh loaves from his haversack.

"Voila!"

The grin on the Baron's face was worth the dirty look he'd given Louis just moments before. The new men looked as if they had never seen such a thing before.

"How? Where?" The Baron asked.

"I know a fellow over in 4th Company who does business with a baker in the nearest town, not village mind you, but town. Big enough that the place still has a functional bakery. For certain considerations, he gets fresh bread brought up a couple of times a week. He was kind enough to spare me a couple of loaves as he owed me a favor." Louis explained.

The Baron nodded, "Very good. Does this fellow have any needs we might be able to satisfy should we want more bread?"

"Certainly, after all, you still know the fellow with the still, yes?"

"Of course, but we'll need another source for apples, in case you missed it, it's winter. Not many apples on the trees this time of year." The Baron shrugged, fresh bread was nice, but with no source of fruit for the still, they wouldn't have anything to trade.

One of the new lads spoke up, "My father grows apricots, he has a large stock of them, dried and easy to ship. My mother knows I like them and I told her that my fellows like them as well. Can your man use apricots for his still?"

The Baron smiled, "This might be a good winter, provided the Boche stay in their dugouts."

Wolfgang looked out over the frozen wasteland between the German positions and the French positions. He shuddered at the thought of going out there again, but rumor had it that the higher ups wanted a prisoner to "chat" with. He couldn't imagine why, not much had changed over the past month, except that the snow had gotten deeper and the wind, if possible, was blowing even colder.

He reached up to scratch his forehead, when his fingers hit the hard metal edge of the new helmets they'd been issued, he winced. His fingers were numb but the hard steel of the helmet reminded him that he could still feel pain.

"Bit heavier than the old ones, ain't they?" Horst came out of the dugout, he wasn't wearing his helmet, just his fatigue cap.

"Better not let the sergeant see you out here without your steel pot. You ever notice the scar on the side of his head?"

"Yes, grazed by a bullet wasn't he?"

"Nope, bit of steel from an exploding shell, if it had hit the leather of his helmet he'd have no scar. But he was wearing his soft cap, just like you and ..."

"Gottverdammt! Where is your helmet, Horst?" the sergeant looked fit to burst.

"I was just going to have a piss, Sergeant, do I need a helmet ..."

"You'll wear the damned thing every time you step out of your hole! Is that clear?"

Horst nodded, "Yes Sergeant, very clear. I'll go get it now."

"Damn right you will. Move!"

After Horst had disappeared back into the dugout the sergeant spoke to Wolfgang.

"You've been volunteered."

"So the rumor is true, why me?"

"The Captain thinks you'll succeed where the others will just get killed. Pick any five men you like and ..."

"I'll take two, Hans and Johannes. They know how to move quietly out there. Any chance we can get ahold of bedding? Sheets, preferably white, of course."

"Sure, Wolf, I'll swing by the hotel and borrow some, what do you think I am, a magician?"

"The lieutenant over in 1st Platoon has a set of sheets. Of course he won't get them back in one piece but ..."

The sergeant studied Wolfgang for a moment, he supposed that if he went to the captain, he could probably get those sheets from 1st Platoon's lieutenant, but it would cost him a favor, of that he was sure.

"I'll see what I can do, be ready about an hour after sundown."

"Yes, chief, we'll be ready. Sheets or no."

Louis was with one of the new men, Anton he thought his name was, showing him what to watch for at night.

"If you think you see something, don't stare at it, focus to either side of it, your peripheral vision is good for such things."

"My peri ... what?"

"Your side view, if you will, you can see things you're not looking directly at, right?" I mean you're not blind are you?"

The new man nodded in sudden understanding, "What did you call it?"

"Peripheral vision."

The new man, his name was indeed Anton, repeated the phrase once or twice. Then he grinned, "Thanks, I'll remember that."

"Also, keep moving, small movements so you don't attract attention. You need to keep your circulation moving or you'll freeze to death. Understood?"

"Yes Sir."

"I'm not a 'sir,' a simple 'yes' will suffice, alright?"

Anton nodded, "Yes, I get it."

"Now I'm heading back to the dugout, any stew left?"

"Yes, there was some, they saved it for you, on account of the bread. Thanks for that, by the way."

"Nothing to it, we need to take care of each other out here. I'll be back in two hours, stay alert. If you fall asleep and the Boche don't kill you, I will. Or the Sergeant. Are we clear?"

"Very clear, I'll stay awake, too damned cold to sleep any way."

The Message

Source

As the men filed out of the trenches to begin their stint away from the front, Louis looked around. The muddy dugout where he'd been living for almost three weeks almost felt like home to him now. He chuckled as he thought back to his first impressions of the hole in the earth he now called "home."

"Something amuses you, lad?" the Baron asked.

"I grew up in a small village, we didn't have much but our home was dry in the rains and warm in the winter. This place is neither, yet I think of it as home. Is that odd?"

"Not really lad, a fellow can get used to almost anything. It's not pleasant, it certainly isn't comfortable, but you get fed, you have a blanket and a place to sleep which is relatively dry, and as long as the rats leave you alone, there are worse places to be, I suppose."

"You suppose?"

"I've seen places in the world which make this seem like a palace. Dirty, overcrowded, thieves and murderers everywhere you turn, let's just say that at least here, those who are trying to kill you wear a different uniform and it isn't personal and it isn't all the time."

"I've heard that parts of Marseilles are like that." Though Louis had never been there, he'd heard stories.

"Ah lad, every big city has places like that, even Paris, places you don't go at night, at least not alone."

"But worse than this muddy hole with it's vermin, the artillery, the constant fear of death?"

"Tell me the truth lad, after you'd been here a while, were you in constant fear for your life?"

Louis thought for a moment, his gaze became distant, as if his mind was traveling to the past, which in a sense, it was.

"No, now that I think of it. Perhaps I was just too tired to care any more."

"That's part of it, I'm sure." The Baron paused for a bit, packing up the last of his kit as he did so.

"I think that if a situation isn't too dire, at least not all of the time, our minds adjust to that new reality. We're still cautious, still afraid of being wounded or dying, but it isn't an immediate thing, it's not something you need to deal with right now. So you don't dwell on it, at least I don't."

Louis laughed, "All I was wondering Baron is how this absolute sewer of a dugout can be considered home."

The Baron smiled, "Do you care about your squad mates?"

"Well sure."

"And they care about you, which in essence is what home is, where people care about you and you care about them. It's not the furnishings, it's how a place makes you feel."

Louis nodded, "That makes sense."

"It's the only thing that makes sense out here, lad. Now let's get going."

Back in the rear, the men were put up in barns and houses which the inhabitants had fled from when the Germans had first come this way in 1914. It wasn't luxurious, it was plain, simple, yet to many of the men, raised in similar small villages, it was better than living in the mud.

Louis had spent the better part of a day cleaning his kit, they'd all been issued new clothing and had gone through delousing. Louis thought how wonderful it was to not have vermin crawling all over him. He actually felt nearly human again. Which pleased him more than he could have thought possible.

As he wondered what to do with himself now, the Baron came in, a somber look on his face.

"Louis."

"Yes, my sergeant?" Louis said with a grin. It somehow annoyed, and amused, the Baron to be called by his rank, which he now wore on his sleeve. So the men enjoyed reminding him of his new responsibilities.

"The found the lieutenant ..."

Louis stood up, "Is he ..."

"Quite dead, yes. His family has been notified, of course, but the regimental commander thought it would be fitting if some of the men who served with him went to see his family. They live fairly close to this place, a short train ride, which the battalion commander arranged tickets for."

"Tickets for who?" Louis was puzzled, yet there was a sinking feeling in his gut.

"For us, lad. The captain told the major that you and I are the only ones left who actually knew the lieutenant."

"What about Charles? Or Hervé?"

"Home leave while the Army rebuilds the regiment. You and I are the only ones available."

"But what if ..."

"What if you don't want to see the lieutenant's wife, his mother, his children? I don't want to either lad, but it's a duty we must perform. Would you want a stranger telling your mother that you were dead?"

"I suppose not, but ..."

"No 'buts' laddie, it's up to us."

Louis stared out the window at the passing countryside. The train ride to the lieutenant's home had been less than three hours, now that their solemn task was concluded, they were returning to the front.

Louis remembered the sobs of the lieutenant's wife, the dazed faces of the children when told that their father was not coming home. Ever.

But most of all he remembered the look on the lieutenant's mother's face. She had gazed heavenwards, said a short prayer, then had simply asked, "Did my boy suffer?"

The Baron had answered as honestly as possible. How he had gone missing during the attack but had been found a few days later when the fighting had seesawed back to where he had gone missing.

The lieutenant had been found, face down in a shell hole, a dead Frenchman on top of him. It looked for all the world that the lieutenant had not been hit at all by enemy fire. One of the men, a long-time veteran, speculated that the lieutenant had been knocked unconscious, how they would never know, and had then fallen into the water with a dead man on his back.

"He drowned, Baron, that's the only thing I can think of. Unconscious, with the weight of the dead guy holding him down, he probably drowned."

Louis shivered again at the thought of it, but all the Baron had said to the man's mother was, "No madam, he did not suffer."

And perhaps he hadn't.

Why?

Der Sturm
Hans Baluschek (PD)

"Why aren't the machine guns firing?" Louis yelled at the Baron as he scrambled to get the mud out of his rifle's firing mechanism. He heard the Baron shout back ...

"Beats me! Maybe they're not set up yet!"

As Louis was finally able to work his bolt, he peered out over the trench lip. There were a lot of Boche out there. As he watched, he heard the machine guns start up, finally.

Wolfgang watched in horror as his best mate, Friedrich, pitched forward and fell into the mud. He knelt beside him and started to roll his friend over when a passing sergeant bellowed at him, "Leave him, he's dead!"

Looking down at his friend, Wolfgang could now see where two or three rounds had penetrated his friend's body, ripping the back of his greatcoat open. Reluctantly he stumbled to his feet and forced himself to advance into the maelstrom, the air was alive with enemy bullets.

Just ahead he saw that some of his comrades had reached the old front line trench they had unceremoniously been thrown out of earlier. One man was wielding his rifle like a club, which made no sense to Wolfgang. Was the man out of bullets?

Wolfgang was ready to use his bayonet, or so he thought. When he got up to the trench, a Frenchman stabbed upwards at him. Just like in training, he parried the man's thrust, then stabbed down with his own bayonet, driving it into the Frenchman's chest, where it stuck.

He was frantically trying to yank the blade out when he saw another Frenchman lower his rifle and aim it. At him!

"Armand! Look out!" Louis yelled as he saw Armand aiming at a German standing on the lip of the trench, trying to free his bayonet. Armand never saw the man who jumped into the trench and hacked at him with an entrenching tool.

Armand fell to the muddy floor of the trench, his left arm nearly severed at the elbow. The German turned with a wild look as Louis started to panic. The Baron shoved him aside and Louis saw the Baron's bayonet jab into the German's belly, be pulled out, then jabbed in again. The German folded over the muzzle of the Baron's rifle then slid to the floor of the trench, his blood staining the mud.

Louis looked up, the man with the stuck bayonet was gone, his rifle still there, the bayonet lodged in the dead Frenchman.

"Louis, use your damned rifle or we're both going to die!" the Baron screamed at him.

Wolfgang stumbled back from the trench, leaving his weapon, he was looking for another one when he saw his lieutenant stop to aim his pistol, then be hit by French machine gun fire, dropping the man like a discarded doll.

There, a rifle! Picking it up, he checked that it worked, it was still loaded but the safety was on. Flicking the safety off he turned towards the French, there! A man was climbing out of the trench, his back to Wolfgang, so Wolfgang aimed and fired.

The Frenchman dropped his rifle then reached behind him, as if to pluck Wolfgang's bullet from his lower back. He dropped to one knee then turned to face his attacker. The look on his face was one of shock and surprise. Then he fell forward into the muck.

Louis worked his bolt and fired another round, when he went to reload, he realized that the magazine was empty. Scrabbling for his ammunition pouches, he extracted a handful of bullets and laboriously began loading them into his rifle. With a tubular magazine, his Lebel held more rounds than the German K98, but it was slow to load them in.

Once loaded with eight rounds, he'd had to grab another as he'd dropped one round into the mud at his feet, he looked for a target. Then he heard the whistles start blowing, what now?

The Baron ran down the trench, gathering what was left of the platoon. "Come on, lads, there's too many of them and our supports are nowhere to be seen."

"So we're just abandoning what we captured?" one of the men argued.

"Well, Jean, you're welcome to stay and defend your piece, but you'll be dead in minutes. Fall back or die, your choice."

Grabbing Louis by the collar, the Baron forced him up and out of the trench. "Run like your life depended on it, boy!"

Regaining the relative safety of their old line, Louis turned to his sergeant, "Why? Just what was the point of all that?"

The Baron took his time answering, "Well, I'm no strategist, but if we don't try and do something, the war will go on forever. We'll be here teaching the next generation how to dig trenches and mount patrols. But yes, today was a colossal screw up. The unit that was supposed to follow us in then continue attacking apparently never got the word. Or they were sent to the wrong place or ... I just don't know, Louis. Someone messed up and we were left in the lurch. But we did hurt the Boche pretty bad. We left a lot of dead Boche in that trench."

Louis shook his head, "Seems we left a lot of dead comrades there as well. Did the Lieutenant make it back?"

The Baron shook his head, "He's missing, probably still in that shell hole he went down in."

"Are we going to go out and bring him back?" Louis thought it made sense.

The Baron stared at Louis for a moment, then answered, "No. Certainly not. If he's alive, which I doubt, he'll be dead before midnight. That's if he was hit. If not, Lord knows what will be his fate. They'll probably never find his body. My wager is that he's already dead. God rest his soul." The Baron crossed himself as he said that.

That shocked Louis, he hadn't seen the Baron as a particularly religious man. So he asked him, "Do you believe?"

"Sometimes. Mostly I try not to think of how God could let us do this to each other. Doesn't seem right, does it?"

Louis wondered what his old village priest might say to that. If he made it home, he'd ask the man.

Then he felt a chill, he'd just thought "if" he made it home, not "when."

After today, Louis didn't know what to think, but he wasn't sure just how much more of this he could take.

He'd been on the line for ten days.

Thanksgiving for Family Time

 Well....Campers welcome to December. Day before Yesterday, AKA November 29th the temperature down here in Texas was a balmy 80 degrees.  Sunday morning, when we left for Church, the temperature was a balmy 42 with a wind chill in the low 30s.  So much for November

Ahhhh, Texas!  If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes it'll change.  So,  I've now got a fire in the fireplace, a wool shirt and sweatshirt on.  Gotta like it.

As most of you are aware, in December the days get shorter.  In our case, not only are the days getting shorter, they're getting fewer in number.  We'll be moving out of our current house on December 15th and closing on it on the 18th.   So....Lots of balls in the air.

However,  we did manage to get the whole family together over the Thanksgiving holiday.  We went over to MBD and family's house in College Station on Tuesday.  Little Juvat, LJW and LJD flew into Houston from London on Tuesday also,  They then rented a car and drove up to College Station.  

Then promptly took a nap! 

Prepping for Thanksgiving dinner started Wednesday and continued til noon on Thursday at which time dining commenced. 

Lots of chowing down and story telling so, all in all, a great holiday.  Leftovers were consumed on Friday and also were quite delicious.  

MBD kept track of the recipes, cooking time and temperatures and all the other minutea required of a successful Thanksgiving Dinner.  Most Excellent it was.

RTB to the 'Burg was on Saturday.  As expected, US 290 between Austin and Houston was bumper to bumper both directions.  

 

In the photo above, the only reason there's a bit of space is the guy in front of us pulled out to make a left turn.  I think he may still be there waiting for an opportunity to complete his left turn.  Once we got to the Y in Austin, things got much better and we made it safely home. 

Little J and gang went back to Jolly Old on Sunday.  Our hosts, MBD and gang, are probably engaging in Naptime as this is being written.

Unfortunately, all wasn't joy and laughing.  Little J, and LJW endured a bit of sadness as their second daughter was born prematurely and didn't survive.  The Family and a few friends had a quiet interrment cerimony.  She's interred right behind her sister's shoulder.  

Happens to all of us. Just wish it hadn't happened so soon.

Peace out y'all!