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War Journal of
Lieutenant John Shaw

17TH JULY 1916

As a communications officer, I take no part in active battle. It is a strange role I play, sitting in my small office, pad and pencil in hand, while the other men are shooting, shelling, fighting, and dying.

Lieutenant Butler, my counterpart in the communications office, assures me that our mission, eavesdropping on German radio communications, is vital. And yet …

Yet I wish to take a larger role in all of this—especially after what I have just seen.

Today I witnessed something of why Captain Harker is so revered.

The men had gathered in the trench at dusk, tense as they prepared for the next assault. While they awaited Captain Harker’s arrival, they adjusted their bayonets with trembling fingers.

Then Harker strode toward them. He was something to behold, with the commanding stature of an emperor—at once an awe-inspiring and heartening sight. He flashed a confident smile. As his gaze swept over them the men snapped to attention, seeming to grow taller themselves, their mouths hardening with purpose.

Giving the command, Captain Harker mounted the ladder. In an almost superhuman feat, he leapt up and over the top of the trench. The men followed close behind him.

Despite the peril, I could not help but watch from the fire step as they marched into battle.

At once, they were spotted and our men were amongst the flash and roar. Harker raised his sword in defiance of the barrage that met them. The ground exploded as the enemy’s well-aimed shells ripped into it. Some men fell swiftly. I felt the force of the blast that took them; earth splattered into the trench. I could smell the iron odour of blood mingled with cordite hanging heavily in the air.

But Captain Harker pressed on, head up, facing the enemy as if death would not dare touch him. Tin helmets tipped forward against the onslaught of both bullets and hardening rain. The men followed, advancing toward the enemy line.

Who is this man? I wondered. What about him allows him to sneer at death? I do not know, but I long to join
him in the fray—to bring glory to my country and this regiment.

22ND JULY 1916

I was on early shift today. “Been busy?” I asked Lieutenant Butler as I entered the communications dugout to relieve him.

Butler nodded wearily. The desk was chaotic with paper. “Translating what I heard from the listening saps last night,” he told me.

“Picked up anything interesting from the enemy lines?” I asked.

“Just the same old chatter. The poor sods sound more terrified than we do.”

I picked up a German newspaper that lay on the desk. The crumpled news sheet felt brittle in my hand—as though it had once been sodden. “Where was this found?”

Butler rubbed his eyes, which were red from fatigue. “Someone picked it up when they flushed the enemy out of the eastern trench.”

“Excellent! A victory! And we captured their newspaper,” I commented wryly.

“For what it’s worth.” Butler shook his head. “Read it; it’s utter piffle.”

As I flicked through the pages, one of the headlines caught
my eye.
Damon der Gräben.
“Demon of the Trenches,” I translated. I read out the article beneath the lurid headline:

I tossed the paper back onto the cluttered desk and chuckled. “I’m surprised their newspapers are printing rot like this. It can’t be good for morale.”

Butler shrugged. “My guess is that our intelligence lads started the rumour to spook them. And they seem to have swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.”

“This poor Klinsmann chap certainly did,” I agreed.

Butler shook his head. “This war is as bad for the mind as it is for the body. In the fog of combat, we aren’t always able to see things for what they really are.”

29TH JULY 1916

Private Smith, who spends part of his day stationed outside the communications dugout, received news from home that he’s going to be a father. Everyone is jolly pleased for him. He’s well liked among the men, being such a good-humoured chap.

I spent the day inside, listening to the saps, but when Butler relieved me at sundown, I decided to find Smith and pass on my good wishes to him. Corporal Jenkins told me he was on sentry duty.

I made my way along the trench and found Smith standing on the fire step, his rifle resting on the parapet in front of him. “I hear congratulations are in order,” I said, keeping my voice low and giving him a gentle slap on the back.

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” he answered quietly, keeping
his eyes fixed on the darkening horizon ahead of him. The guns for once were silent, and only the low murmurings of the men disturbed the quiet evening.

“You must be pleased,” I went on. “Is it your first?”

Smith nodded. “Honeymoon baby, I think they call it, sir.” He turned momentarily to give me a quick smile. “We was wed five days before I left to come out here.” He paused. “When all this is over, I’ll be goin’ home to me little chap.”

“Chap?” I chuckled. “But Smith, how do you know it will be a boy?”

“It will be, sir.” The private gave me a shy grin. “I just know it will.”

He gazed down at me, and I noticed that his eyes were clouded with tears.

“Is everything all right?” I asked quietly, concerned now.

“Sorry, sir,” Smith said, quickly wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “It’s just, I didn’t mind what happened to me before. I was scared, of course, but I knew that if I copped it, my Elsie could find herself another bloke to take care of her, and she’d remember me with pride … but now there’s a little ’un on the way. If I die out here, my lad will grow up never knowing his dad….”

I felt my own throat tighten, moved by his heartfelt words. But there was little comfort I could offer. I gripped his arm and gave it an encouraging shake. “Chin up. Why don’t you write Elsie a letter?”

“I never got round to much schooling, Lieutenant,” Smith admitted.

“That’s all right. I can write it for you.” I reached for the crumpled notepaper I always carried with me. “You keep your watch and tell me what to write. I’ll make sure to get every word to Elsie, safe and sound.”

So while Smith kept guard, I scribbled down his mumbled words of affection to Elsie, speaking of his delight and of how he couldn’t wait to get home to her and the nipper. It gave Smith some peace of mind, and I was glad to have been the one to provide it.

1ST
A
UGUST 1916

I was awoken in the early hours by a massive explosion that shook me from my bunk. My heart hammered in the darkness. Had my dugout been buried under a direct hit?

I pulled on my boots and groped for the door. It opened easily.

Emerging, I saw the sky lit up by explosions—flash upon flash—shells landing all round us. I crouched down, cowering in the doorway. The sound and the flame transformed the scene before me into a depiction of hell itself.

“Move! Move!” Sergeant O’Reilly yelled. Soldiers hurried past carrying empty stretchers. I saw O’Reilly’s mouth open and close as more flickering shellburst lit up his face and drowned out his voice.

It was hard to keep my balance there in the doorway as the passing soldiers buffeted me. Then I shook myself. What was I doing huddled here? I had duties to attend to.

My first instinct was to help the wounded among us. I stumbled toward the newly formed crater in the trench and tripped on a lump that lay in the broken earth. Fearing I had trodden on one of the wounded, I looked down.

Nobody was there, just an arm, bloody and outstretched as if to greet me. Tendons and muscles dangled from its end as it oozed a sickly red into the mud.

My vision blurred. The horror of the sight threatened to overwhelm me. But I fought against it. I had to be strong. I swallowed hard and staggered on.

In the area of the blast, there were hundreds of writhing, screaming bodies. It was impossible to know which of the injured to attend to first. I felt a hand grasp my ankle and forced my gaze downward. A young private curled like a kitten on the ground was shrieking up at me in agony.

I knelt to help him up, putting one arm around his shoulders and another on his belly.

A warm, oily substance covered my hand. I glanced down and found a gaping wound in
the soldier’s belly. His intestines and other organs threatened to spill out of him.

I grasped what skin I could and did my best to hold his guts inside. “Stretcher! Bring a stretcher!” I shouted. But no stretcher came.

The soldier had no strength in his legs, so I did the only thing I could think of. I tipped him over my shoulder, carrying him like a sack of coal.

“Holy mother of God! Holy mother of God!”

I tried to block my ears against his tortured screams and ignore the warm dampness of his blood spreading across my shoulder.

I delivered him to the medic and returned to the crater. I carried back another man and another until I grew numb to their agonised cries. I thought only of where I headed, putting one foot before the other and struggling to keep my balance beneath their writhing weight.

Afterward I crouched, exhausted, against the side of the trench. The shelling had eased, or at least moved farther down the line. An hour or so later, as dawn light began to seep into the shadows, the distant hammering fell away into silence.

“Sir? Are you all right?” Jenkins’s voice sounded beside me.

I looked wearily into his filthy face. “Jenkins. You’re not injured?”

“No, Lieutenant,” he growled. “We live to fight another day.” His tone was heavy with irony.

L
ATER

I was called to Captain Harker’s office a short while ago.

“Your bravery during our last attack has proved you
worthy of your officer status, Lieutenant Shaw,” he told me, looking pleased.

“Thank you, Captain,” I replied, though I wondered how he knew about my actions. Try as I might, I could not recall seeing Captain Harker during the day’s chaos.

Harker waved his hand toward the chair in front of his desk. “Sit down, Lieutenant.”

I did so.

“How have you settled in?” he asked me. “Enjoying life at the front?”

I was getting used to caustic trench humour now. “Surviving so far, sir,” I answered.

“If I were you, I’d feel somewhat helpless stuck here in the trenches,” Harker suggested.

I stared at him, taken aback by his insight. The pull to have a more active role in battle had been growing steadily in me ever since I arrived.

“You want to be out there,” finished Harker. “In the thick of it.”

“I want to
fight
for my king and country,” I declared.

“And you shall, John.” Harker smiled. “Fear not, your orders will come soon. Then you and I will do our work together—under the cover of night.”

I stared at him. Excitement and fear mingled inside me. A night raid! Did Harker plan to take me on one of his solitary assaults? I pictured myself climbing over the top of the
trench, exacting revenge on those who had harmed our fallen comrades.

I returned to my dugout with my mind racing, my pulse pounding with excitement. When will I get the command?

I must close now to go and relieve Butler.

4TH
A
UGUST 1916

I will not write much for I am weary to the bone. The enemy raided the trench last night. We were taken by surprise; no one had raised the alarm.

They threw a grenade into the trench ahead of their arrival. A stupid strategy. Though we lost two men in the explosion, we’d have lost a lot more if the enemy had slipped in silently and slit all our throats.

As the impact from the explosion woke me I scrambled from my bed, reaching for my sword and pistol in one movement.

“The Hun are attacking!” Jenkins roared as I burst from my dugout. “We’ve got them pinned down in no-man’s-land, but they’re not retreating!”

With gun and grenade, we held them off as best we could. Jenkins and I stood side by side on the fire step, shooting at whatever shadow moved in the darkness ahead of us.

A wave of satisfaction washed over me whenever my bullet struck its target.

“Breach! They’ve breached the trench!” a voice bleated in the darkness.

“Hold your positions!” Harker’s voice called above the sound of gunfire. Then screams, horrible bloodcurdling screams—from the same direction.

I prayed it was not our own men who uttered such anguished cries.

Jenkins and I continued to fight, but soon we were out of ammunition. “Damn,” Jenkins muttered. “We’re sitting ducks.”

“Not for long,” I told him. I scurried down the trench to the dugout, where the boxes of ammunition were stored. I was about to enter when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Captain Harker, locked in combat with an enemy soldier.

I straightened, ready to defend my commander with my sword. But then, in the darkness, Captain Harker grabbed the soldier by the throat. I watched as he lifted him in the air—with only one hand!