The Devil in No Man's Land: 1917 Read Online Free Page B

open his eyes and see Thorpe smiling up at him, the wound on his neck gone. But when he did open them, all he saw was blood, and death.
    He held Thorpe for a long time, knowing he should attend to his men, but completely unable to do so, until a noise to his left made him look up.
    The boy was standing in front of the empty window.
    Blood ran in dark rivers from the holes caused by the squad's bullets, but still he stood.
    “What madness is this?” asked Ellis, his voice little more than a whisper.
    Harker stood up and backed away, never taking his eyes off the young German. The boy turned his head right and left, his teeth bared and shockingly white against the blood that was smeared round his mouth and chin. His glowing eyes rolled; his fists clenched and relaxed.
    This boy is utterly mad , thought Harker. If it even is a boy .
    “Töte mich. Bitte töte mich.”
    Ellis translated the boy's low, guttural words without prompting. “Kill me,” he croaked. “Please kill me.”
    “Sir?” said Kavanagh.
    “Do as he asks,” said Harker.
    The five men raised their rifles and pulled the triggers. The boy made no attempt to move; the lead struck him in the chest and shoulders and slammed him back against the shattered window. There was a horrible, slippery sound as a long shaft of the window frame, broken loose by the artillery fire that had robbed the church of its roof, slid wetly between the boy's shoulder blades and pierced his heart.
    A smile flickered across his gore-streaked face.
    Then he exploded in a thunderclap of crimson that sprayed across the ruined church, coating the five men standing among its pews.
     
    The Special Reconnaissance Unit made its way back through no man's land, the burning church throwing orange light and sparks into the cold night air behind them.
    Once they had wrapped Thorpe's body in a makeshift stretcher made from the coats of the German soldiers and carried him out of the church, Kavanagh and McDonald had gone back inside and smashed the oil lanterns on to the wooden pews; Quincey Harker had not attempted to dissuade them. The five men had said almost nothing to each other on their march back through Passchendaele village, past Crest Farm, and down the treacherous valleys of earth and wire that led them back into no man's land, their friend carried low between them. They crossed it quickly, recklessly so, and slipped back into the Allied trenches as the first grey fingers of dawn caressed the eastern horizon.
    A driver was waiting for them, his uniform pressed and clean, his boots polished to mirrors; he informed them that they were expected at HQ at once. Harker made the man wait until Thorpe's body had been carefully laid on a cart and sent to the field hospital, then led his men to an idling car. They drove in silence to the grand chateau, where an adjutant showed them into Field Marshal Gough's study and closed the door.
    Gough was standing behind a map of the Passchendaele battlefield. Without looking up, he addressed the squad. “Deliver your report and get the hell—”
    He got no further.
    Quincey Harker crossed the study in four long strides and slammed his fist into the Field Marshal's nose, breaking it audibly, splashing crimson across the map, and sending the old man stumbling against the wall, his eyes wide with shock. Harker raised his fist again, but Kavanagh caught his arm, as Potts and Ellis grabbed his shoulders and waist, and dragged him back.
    “Have you lost your mind?” bellowed Gough. “I'll see you shot for this, you—”
    “For what, sir?” interrupted Ellis. “I don't think even you can send a man to the firing squad without witnesses.”
    “Well, damn it all, there's four of you standing right there,” roared the Field Marshal. “Do you mean to tell me—”
    “I didn't see anything, sir,” said Ellis. He looked at the rest of the squad. “Did any of you?”
    The others shook their heads.
    Gough's face reddened to the point where the blood