No Trench To Rest (The French Bastard Book 1)

  NO TRENCH TO REST

  Book 1 of The French Bastard

  —Previously published as Michel And Henry Go To War—

  Avan Judd Stallard

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places and events are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2017 Avan Judd Stallard

  All rights reserved.

  Previously published as Michel and Henry Go to War.

  Published by Baby Blue Goat.

  Cover by Ebook Launch, https://ebooklaunch.com.

  ISBN-10: 0-6481408-0-6

  ISBN-13: 978-0-6481408-0-1

  NOTE TO READER

  This novel was previously published as Michel and Henry Go to War. It contains strong language and violence, and adult situations.

  All characters are fictional or used fictitiously. Some events and locations diverge from history and geography. Spellings follow American English. All other conventions follow British or Australian customs.

  You can find more information about Avan’s books, blog and other writing at www.avanstallard.com. For his mailing list with exclusive content and alerts when new books are available, sign up here.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  NOTE TO READER

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  EPILOGUE

  1

  27 MARCH 1917: THE LORRAINE, FRANCE

  Amid the din of battle, Michel and Henry heard the whine of an incoming mortar at the last moment. Both men dropped with the abandon of falling toddlers and covered their heads as an ordnance exploded barely fifteen yards from their prone bodies. It was far enough for them not to be shredded to pieces, but close enough to serve as a reminder that a soldier’s luck only lasted so long and any day now their numbers would be up.

  With arms at the ready, his muscles tense and quivering, Michel waited for a break in the barrage so that he might push to his feet and make another dash toward enemy lines. Henry would do the same, though he would not be the first—never the first, but nor the last.

  During battle, time stretched like Yankee gum, and so the eternity that the two British Army soldiers lay there praying the mortars would stop or at least not score a direct hit and rip their bodies in half counted, in reality, for a few seconds. They exchanged a worried glance.

  “Christ, Michel. I think we’re done for this time. The lads are getting cut to pieces up there,” said Henry, yelling to be heard above explosions and gunfire and the distant sounds of men screaming in bloodlust and others crying at the sight of their own mangled forms.

  The Germans had three machineguns set up on the hill, two trained on the bottleneck and one strafing the line. Michel looked up to see the lattice of death drawn by the red of tracer bullets chasing ever-so-slight arcs above their heads. Mortars fell without pause, their explosions raining a hellish shower of earth, shrapnel and dismembered flesh. Dead were strewn the field over.

  “You’re right. This is madness,” said Michel.

  He reached out and grabbed Henry by the shoulder. He pulled him close. The mortars momentarily let up and the line advanced without them.

  “Henry, if we go, we die. No one gets beyond that bottleneck. And the next wave. Not beyond those guns. Impossible. Suicide.”

  “I know. But what can we do? We can’t abandon the line. We’ll be shot for desertion!”

  “Not abandon, Henry. The German position is on the hill, but this wire is impassable. And the flank through Rinay, too many guns. The eastern flank, Henry. The Germans think it is safe because the Meuse River bridge is blown and the cliffs protect them. They won’t have any guard there. We can climb the cliffs, flank their position, take out the guns.”

  “What? Those cliffs are forty feet! There’s no way we can climb them.”

  Michel smiled wryly. “I can climb them easily.”

  Before Henry could offer another objection, Michel hauled him upright.

  “This is the only way. Follow!”

  Whether he like it or not, Henry was in this with Michel. They sprinted for the trenches. Dirt exploded to Michel’s left and there were hollow thuds in front of him as he scrambled through a crater, up its side and dropped into a trench filled with a mix of mud, blood and human waste, all of it the unrecognizable filth of war.

  Henry was a few seconds behind when he tripped, his limbs splaying at every angle. He wallowed in the mud, trying to wriggle his way forward the last few feet. Michel turned to see a puddle hiss mere inches from Henry’s face. Michel scrambled out of the trench far enough to grab Henry by the scruff of the neck, then proceeded to drag the little Englishman headlong. Henry’s entry was undignified and violent, but he was in the trench and safe.

  “Come,” said Michel.

  They moved quickly through the narrow lanes cut from dark soil, east toward the Meuse. As they scuttled through debris and chaos, Michel found a good length of rope and, from the nearly empty forward armory, a box of Number 5 Mills grenades—the good ones, the ones that did not blow up in your hand or, worse, not at all. Michel jammed eight in a hessian sack and kept moving.

  ♦

  “Can’t climb, can’t swim,” said Michel, shaking his head. “Well, Henry, I do not care. I may need you. Get in the water.”

  “I can’t. It’s too—”

  And with that Henry was hurtling through the air, landing with an unceremonious belly-flop five feet from the bank. In an instant, Michel was beside him.

  “It’s only chest deep. Now quick.”

  Chest deep for Michel was almost neck-deep for Henry, but wading was better than being dragged. They made quick progress up the river and within a few minutes were surrounded by steep cliffs. It was a foreboding place to be, the seething sky of a thousand explosions pressing down over the turbid water, hemmed by black and red walls of jagged rock. In different circumstances it could be a place of great beauty. Right then it was just a different ugliness—ugly because it promised pain or misery or death, like most everything on the front.

  After a short while, Michel was satisfied they had gone far enough north to outflank the immediate German position. He waded to the far shore and pulled himself onto a perch of rock jutting from the cliff-face. As he took a moment to crane his head skyward and see how he might find a way to the top, he heard a sharp splash, followed by silence.

  A few yards from Michel’s perch, a circle of ripples pulsed toward the shore. More exasperated than worried, Michel leaned out as far as he could and thrust his powerful arm into the murky depths. He fished around till he felt a flailing Englishman and, for the second time that day, dragged Henry to safety.

  Michel paid no heed to Henry’s choking and coughing. He bundled the hessian sack containing the grenades into Henry’s hands.

  “Hold that.”

 
With the rope slung around his torso, Michel began the ascent of the rock face.

  Henry clung desperately to his few inches of dry rock and took deep gulps of air. He gripped the sack of grenades to his chest like a little boy holding a beloved teddy bear. He watched Michel climb—climb like an animal born to rock, his fluid movements exacting a minimum of effort.

  A few minutes later, Michel stood at the top of the cliff, looking down at the little Englishman. He fixed the rope to a stump and wound a length around his body. He dropped it to Henry, who tied the rope around his waist and held on for dear life.

  Henry tried in vain to help but could only flail while Michel simply hauled the smaller man straight up the face of rock without pause. After forty hellish feet, Henry scratched frantically for a hand-hold. Once his knees and hands found terra firma, he scrambled in the manner of an excited suckling that has just seen mother pig’s teat, stopping only when he could no longer imagine the hideous drop dragging him down.

  Henry gasped for air as if there had been enormous exertion in scaling the cliff. And of course there had, but all of it had been done by his mind, willing Michel not to let him fall to his death or an even worse maiming.

  “You know, Henry, for a small man you weigh much. About halfway I think, maybe one man is enough …” said Michel. His face had colored a ruddy red, in stark contrast to Henry’s ashen complexion.

  The sound of machineguns and explosions echoed relentlessly in the distance, and Michel knew that every retort meant another fallen comrade.

  “Ok, Henry, let’s move. I hope those grenades still work,” he said, nodding to the sack Henry held tight. Until Michel’s comment, Henry had clearly not given any thought to what effect submersion in water could have on the grenades.

  “Not work …” spat Henry, “Christ, we’ll be mince! What are we going to do?”

  “Cross our fingers and say our prayers. What can we do?”

  “No way. I’m not jumping into a bunker of machinegun-wielding killers with … a handful of stones for protection. No way,” said Henry, still on his haunches.

  “Henry, listen to the guns. The explosions. They’re being torn apart down there. Those in command don’t care. Our boys will be wiped out, then they’ll push the second wave through. Only when there are too many bodies to climb over will they stop, say it isn’t working and come up with something else, just as impossible. Is that what you want? Every man we have fought beside these last months will lay dead in that field. We—we—have these,” Michel said, pointing to the grenades.

  “We could test them, give our position away. Or, we can take our chances. Go throw these big rocks at some Germans. If they go bang, good. If they don’t, we still get to look our killers in the eyes before our last. That, or we go back and die useless in a potato field with hundreds of other men.”

  Michel looked at Henry. Fire and indignation lit the green of his eyes. Henry averted his gaze.

  “Well, which is it? And if you choose to die useless in a field, I swear, putain, I will throw you off this cliff myself.”

  ♦

  Barely thirty yards from where Henry and Michel lay prone on their stomachs, the embattlement pounded away, reaping untold carnage. Owl-like whoomps were the deceptive sound of mortars being fired, while the machinegun that spat pieces of lead bigger than Henry’s fingers sounded every bit as savage as it was, a series of staccato explosions followed by the hiss of water cooling the hot turbine.

  From their vantage of height the Germans had clear sight south for almost two miles. Any significant movements the Allied troops made were telegraphed well in advance. The position itself comprised little more than two trenches separated by a barricade, fortified by a few layers of sandbags. The German lines proper were one hundred yards below. Small arms fire rang out from two hundred, maybe three hundred soldiers. It was not much, but with two mortars and three machineguns dug in, the Allied assault through the bottleneck—a barbed-wire bottleneck supposedly smashed by last night’s heavy artillery—was utterly hopeless, like a mob of serfs rushing Camelot.

  Michel and Henry assessed the situation. In the far trench: two guns, one mortar and a total of eight men. In the near trench: one gun, one mortar and six men.

  “Could be worse,” whispered Michel, though the look on Henry’s face suggested not.

  Michel relieved Henry of the sack of grenades and whispered, “This is what we do. You get close to the first trench while I push down to the second. I’ll attack, and as soon as I have their attention you lob two grenades in and duck for cover. If there’s anyone left after that, I’ve got a few more that should take care of things.”

  “And if the grenades don’t work?”

  “Christ, Henry, I don’t know. Yell ‘Hallelujah’ and go with glory. Or maybe you want to offer to fiddle their balls. Just figure it out.”

  And with that, Michel bundled two grenades into Henry’s hands and took off, belly-crawling west through the mud and grass.

  Henry wriggled his way forward till he was a bit over thirty feet from the nearest gun, so close he could smell the Germans. He just hoped they could not smell him—either the stink from weeks without a bath, or the musky reek of fear.

  Henry’s knuckles were white. He had to make a conscious effort to loosen his grip on the grenades that looked like tiny pineapples. Henry had never eaten a pineapple, but he had seen one. He had never eaten a grenade, either, though plenty of other soldiers had, especially the old Battye models that reminded him—for no good reason—of a butter churn. The Battye bombs probably maimed as many Allied as German soldiers. Only took command a year and a half to decide they were a bad idea.

  Henry shifted the grenades to a single hand. Their bulk barely fit his grip. He fumbled and dropped one, then both.

  “Henry!” he muttered to himself.

  He picked them up and dusted them off. Again he took the two grenades in one hand and lined up the pins so he could yank both in one go. The quicker they were thrown and gone from his hands, the better his chances of still having two hands come the end of day. Whether he would be alive at that point was another question entirely.

  A long time seemed to pass with Henry just listening to the sound of the machineguns and mortars, the sounds those of great violence being done to the good men below. He wished Michel would hurry up, at the same time as he wished he had nothing to do with the whole suicidal plan.

  Without warning, Michel bolted from the grass twenty feet from the second trench. He let out a war cry that rose above the thunder of the cannons, then one grenade flew, followed by a muffled explosion. Michel threw a second grenade and this time the explosion was much bigger. With a third grenade in hand, Michel bounded over the threshold of the trench and into the fray, and seconds later there was a third massive explosion that jolted Henry to his senses, then he was on his feet and surging forward.

  Henry ripped the grenade pins from their recesses and pumped his arms and legs. As the first gun came into sight he loosed a grenade, hard and low, not at all like he had been trained. Before it had traveled its full measure, it exploded smoke and shrapnel, the shockwave knocking six Germans to their asses. Henry was still on his feet. With a final surge he launched himself into the trench and sent his last grenade into the nest of soldiers.

  The grenade rolled along the ground, then made a wet sizzling sound and spewed dark smoke. There was no explosion. The Germans now looked at Henry, who stood there slack-jawed, looking right back.

  The soldiers clamored for their small arms. By the time Henry blinked, the first had a fully automatic modified Luger in his hands. The man yanked hard on the trigger and lead started pumping, but his was the aim of a scared and angry soldier suffering shell-shock. The nearest of his comrades was torn to pieces in a hail of collateral fury and he kept spraying, oblivious, desperate to kill the killer who as yet had not killed a damn thing.

  Henry dove for a depression already home to three German corpses. Two of the other soldiers had thei
r rifles, and Henry’s cover was barely cover at all. There was nowhere else. It was over.

  Henry knew it was to be the miserable instant when he died, and even though it had taken longer than he expected, even though he had been expecting it day after day after day, still in that moment it seemed desperately unfair. Maybe it would have seemed less unfair if he had done something, achieved something, saved a few of the boys—but he had not. He was just dying like everyone else and only his dear Mom would care and that was not fair either, not even a wife or girlfriend to shed a tear, not even a father to give a nice eulogy because he had run off with that whore from Hartlip and had never been very fond of him, anyway.

  But then came a mighty war cry from beyond the barricade: “Yahhhh!”

  German heads pitched to the heavens and all attention focused on the blaze tearing its way through the sky. Michel’s legs kept pumping as he sailed over the turbines and over the soldiers, then with languid flicks of his wrists two grenades burst from his balled fists.

  With guns hard on his tail Michel landed and dove into a roll that hurtled him across the trench. He barreled through one soldier and past a second. The embankment brought him to a violent stop and in an instant lead was pounding into the parapet, the crackle of fire echoed by the thud of bullets landing thoomp thoomp thoomp in the hard dirt wall thoomp thoomp thoomp all around Michel and then boom! boom! as two huge explosions tore through everything standing.

  Time seemed to stop altogether. No soldiers moved or yelled, and no guns fired, except for those in the distance—always guns firing in the distance. A blanket of blue-black smoke started to descend over the snarl of wrought bodies. Eventually, against all odds, one figure and then a second began to stir.

  2

  The Vitrimont internment camp was originally built to house civilians. From the outbreak of war in 1914, it had been home to some six hundred dangerous enemy aliens. Yet for the most part, their only transgression—the only thing that made them dangerous—was possession of German heritage. That, and the balls between their legs. Women, it had been decided, could not possibly be dangerous, even if they were German, and so they remained at large.