Captain Alexander peered through his field glasses. Despite the bullets
whistling past at ground level and the dull, earth-shattering thuds that shook
the ground and spewed forth huge splays of clay and dust, the men were prepared
to obey their orders like sheep. The noise
was deafening and incessant, and was enough to drive anyone unaccustomed to the
world of mechanised warfare, insane. But most of the men were wholly accustomed
to it by now; It had become part of everyday life for them.
Private Thomas Highgate, on the other hand, was hardly a man in the
strict sense of the word. He was no more than seventeen years of age when he
had signed up for the Royal West Kent Regiment. His mother would always refer
to him as ‘the boy.’ “It’s alright, you leave those right there, the boy will
see to it first thing,” she’d say; or “Never you mind about fetching coal, Sam,
the boy will do it right enough.” He was used to a tough life back in Blighty.
Farm labouring in Shoreham wasn’t exactly a picnic, and his father wasn’t the
easiest of employers. So it hadn’t seemed like a big deal to sign those
official papers; and besides, all his mates were up for it. It was going to be
an easy war – a walk-over. Everybody knew that. So here he was, among the
slimy, putrid, rat-infested trenches where death hung in the air like a bad
smell – which, of course, it was. It wasn’t what he had expected. It wasn’t
what anyone had expected. But it was too late to go back now. Too late to have
second thoughts. Too late to let your nerves get the better of you.
It was just as well he had Jimmy by his side. Jimmy was a tough but
sensitive soul, and looked out for him like the caring and compassionate father
Thomas never had. The older man must have been in his early forties, was large
framed with soft grey eyes and spoke with a deep, resonant, reassuring voice.
He would always make sure the lad was close to hand, and out of harm’s way; not
that anyone could rationally predict where that might be at any given moment.
“You stick with me son, and you’ll be alright. Do you hear me?” Jimmy would
say, and Thomas would follow like a shadow. As a carpenter by trade, this gentle
giant with grey eyes had a young wife and child back home in the pretty village
of Aylesford. Thomas knew it well. He’d enjoyed many a pint in its tiny pub on
the high street that could trace its origins back to Henry VIII. In their quiet
moments, Jimmy would always share his ration of cigarettes with the lad and
show him photographs of the ‘two girls in his life.’ Here they’d chat like
father and son. Thomas would talk of his work on the farm, the girl he intended
to get engaged to after the war, and his dream of buying a Morris Oxford when
he had his own farm, and employed his own labourers. In return, Jimmy would
recount tales of courting, the pleasures of parenthood and colourful accounts
of his sporting prowess on the village cricket green. He was clearly a very
skilful leg spin bowler and had in one memorable game taken six wickets for the
cost of just two runs.
The sound of captain Alexander’s whistle pierced the air like a sharp
steel blade through butter, and Thomas felt Jimmy’s large leathery,
callous-ridden hand grab his and pull him firmly but carefully up the firing
steps into enemy fire. “Alright lad, he we go. God bless, eh.” It was a
strangely compassionate and fatherly gesture in the circumstances.
As he emerged from his subterranean home, he glimpsed a couple of men to his right; their lifeless bodies collapsing like large sacks of potatoes back into the trench. As they did so, the roar of war seemed to intensify and Thomas unconsciously wet himself. He was petrified. “Keep looking forward lads. Never look back.” Captain Alexander’s words sounded more like a stern warning than helpful advice. The truth of the matter was that visibility wherever you looked above ground was unbelievably poor as all around them explosions would tear the landscape apart in violent, nerve shattering bursts, while smoke and debris filled the air with a kind of thick, acrid smog. The ground here was no firmer than it had been back in the trenches as his boots squelched and slid on the mud. Thomas continued slowly, instinctively crouching as if this would in some way help him dodge enemy bullets and artillery shells. While carefully following Jimmy over a barbed wire fence, the ground just behind them erupted and the force of the blast threw him into the air and dumped him unceremoniously into a freshly made crater.
It was some while before he could open his eyes. The explosion had been
so close and intense that it felt as if his eardrums had quite literally
exploded, and as a result he could barely hear the sound of gunfire and the
explosions of shells around him, though he could feel their violent tremor well
enough. Thankfully, he was, for the moment, totally oblivious to the
heart-rending cries of those poor wretched souls in close proximity who were
dying where they’d fallen.
Thomas eased himself forward and as he did so, noticed a significant
amount of fresh blood on his tunic. He tentatively unbuttoned two brass buttons
and slid his hand gently beneath the fabric to feel his chest beneath the vest.
There was no discernible wound or pain. The blood clearly and thankfully wasn’t
his. Then he noticed that his boot was lying upturned no more than a couple of
yards from his right hand. Instinctively, he stretched to pull it out of the
thick, grey mud, only to discover that it wasn’t his; it was caked in dark
congealed blood and still had its owner’s decapitated foot inside. Thomas
retched and vomited. He didn’t want to be here. He wasn’t made for this kind of
thing. He wanted to be back on the farm. And then he remembered his friend.
Where was Jimmy? If he could find his mate, he’d be alright. He was tired from
nervous exhaustion, and the blast that had obviously come so close to killing
him had had a profound effect on his nerves, which hadn’t been in a very good
state to begin with. In an attempt to calm himself, he closed his eyes and took
deep breaths, holding each for 10 seconds and then expelling air slowly. While
doing this he’d imagine himself in a pleasant and relaxing setting. It was a
technique he’d use to cope with stress and would invariably induce a
semi-trance-like state if only for a few minutes.
The war seemed miles away now as he stepped out of the pavilion and
admired the view before him. It was the perfect village green, the midday sun
threw long shadows across the neatly clipped outfield, and you could hear the
birds singing in the distant hedgerows. The eleven men in white flannels
assumed their fielding positions as Jimmy furiously rubbed the leather ball on
his flannels so that one half of the blood red leather orb shone like glass. He
turned and languidly strode towards the crease and in an elegant furry of arms
and legs delivered the perfect ball. It pitched in line with middle stump and
as the batsman strode down the wicket to drive it off his front foot, it turned
sharply, sailed past the bat and clipped the off stump, knocking the bail to
the ground. Jimmy smiled and there was much shaking of hands. He winked at
Thomas. “Now that, young man, is how you bowl an off-spinner.”
Light rain quite literally stopped play as droplets rolled down Thomas’s
filthy face causing muddy rivulets to stream down his army collar. The sound of
war had returned to his ears, and he opened his eyes. The light seemed to be fading
now as he gently eased himself out of the crater. His slightly rusty rifle, for
which he had already been reprimanded, was nowhere to be seen, but he wasn’t
particularly bothered by that. All he wanted to do was locate Jimmy. He hoped
in God’s name that his older friend hadn’t been killed. From now on he wasn’t
going to stand. He’d have a far better chance of staying alive if he crawled on
all fours.
As it turned out, Jimmy hadn’t been very far away… 50 possibly 80 yards,
no more. He lay on his back, eyes wide open staring into the heavens. He looked
at peace with the world, and his right hand was clenched tightly around
something that Thomas couldn’t make out. Gently the boy prised open his
friend’s fingers and retrieved a photograph. It was the photograph of Jimmy
with his wife and their little girl with ribbons in her hair. They were
standing on a promenade looking out to sea. It could have been anywhere.
Brighton, Lyme Regis, Penzance. Now he’d never know. He’d never be able to ask
his friend, and the realisation brought tears to the boy’s eyes, one of which
fell from his eyelash and landed on the black and white image. The boy tenderly
wiped the photograph with his filthy sleeve and placed it back in the dead
man’s hand. “Here you go Jimmy. I’m sorry mate. You were a good friend and I
shall miss you more than you can imagine. I will never forget you mate. I
promise.” And with these words, the boy gently closed his friend’s eyelids
because it just felt like the right thing to do.
Without Jimmy, Thomas didn’t know which way to turn, so he just kept on
crawling through the mud. And the further he ventured, the more corpses he
encountered. Captain Alexander had half his skull missing and still had his
field glasses dangling around his neck. Robin Paltrow was dangling ungainly
from a barbed wire fence with one arm missing; Colin Rigby lay with a large
gash in his chest. Other familiar faces greeted him with blank or painful
stares: Jonathan Nelson, big Billy Butcher, Alan Townsend and countless others
whose names now eluded him. As far as Thomas could tell, most of his regiment
had been wiped out, and he had no intention of joining them. He would keep
crawling away from the battle zone, away from the deafening clamour of war, and
away from the stench of death.
He kept crawling until nightfall, and the further he crawled and the
less muddy the terrain became, the safer he began to feel. It must have been
around 2 or 3 in the morning when he finally felt blades of grass between his
fingers. The din of battle had calmed and was certainly more distant now, so
under the cover of a black velvety sky and luminous half crescent moon he
continued on foot.
He hadn’t spotted the barn in the darkness but had by chance stumbled
upon it quite literally. It was a godsend. His feet were in agony from blisters
and the slow onset of gangrene. Inside were bales of hay and sacks of animal
feed, the smell of which were familiar to him and reminded him of home. As his
eyes slowly became accustomed to the darkness he discovered a set of clean work
clothes draped over a roughly hewn wooden bannister. He couldn’t believe his
luck as he tore his filthy army uniform off and pulled on the soft cotton
civilian clothes. They were slightly too large for him, so he simply rolled up
the trouser ends and shirt sleeves and used his army belt to tighten the
trousers at the waist. Then he found a cosy corner, buried himself in a pile of
hay and fell asleep.
John Burton, the gamekeeper had worked on Lord Rothschild’s land in the
village of Tournan for no more than 18 months and had got the job on account of
his 15 years in the army in which he’d seen active service during the Boer War.
He was a nondescript ghost of a man with sullen features and a high forehead. A
man of few words, he had never married or formed a meaningful relationship with
anyone in his 54 years. He’d only gone into the barn to hang a brace of
pheasants, and on entering noticed the various items of the British
army uniform lying scattered on the floor. Thomas’s gentle snoozing gave the
lad away.
Burton put the pheasants down and stood over the boy. “Good morning
young man.”
Thomas opened his eyes and registered the silhouette of the figure above
him. “I see you’ve helped yourself to my work clothes. Army too much for you,
was it?”
Thomas rubbed his eyes. “I’ve had enough of it… I can’t take any more of
it. I want to get out of the army, and this is how I am going to do it.” He
tugged at his shirt. “I hope you don’t mind.” As soon as he’d uttered these words,
Thomas began to regret what he’d just said. He didn’t know who this Englishman
was. And he could almost hear Jimmy’s voice berating him. “Easy lad,” he’d have
cautioned. “Play your cards close to your chest boy.” But it was too late now.
What had been said couldn’t be unsaid.
The man remained quiet for a little while before speaking. And when he
did, he chose not to refer to the work clothes. “I expect you’ll be a bit
hungry then,” he said.
“Could say that,” Thomas nodded. “Actually I’m starving hungry.”
Burton mumbled something unintelligible to himself and turned to
retrieve his pheasants in order to hang them from a hook, which had clearly
been screwed into the timber frame for this very purpose. “In that case,” he said
with his back to the boy, “I’ll arrange to have some food sent over. Might be
able to rustle up some ham and cheese and a bit of bread if you’re lucky.
What’s your name lad?”
“Thomas. Thomas Highgate, sir. And thank you very much sir. I’d really
appreciate that.”
“That’s alright Thomas. You wait right there. I won’t be too long.” And
with that, the man was gone. The thought of food hadn’t crossed Thomas’s mind
until now, but now that it had, he couldn’t think of anything else. He’d wait
here for the man to come back.
The wait was rather longer than he’d have liked. But when the door of
the barn did finally open, the boy’s eyes weren’t greeted by the sight of John
Burton but instead, two men in military uniform. One stooped to inspect the
uniform on the floor. “Royal West Kent Regiment, eh? Very fine regiment.” The
other man who looked the more senior of the two stood in the doorway. Now it
was his turn to speak. “Very fine regiment indeed, Lieutenant Martins. Not the
kind of regiment to put up with the likes of cowards and deserters.”
The two stepped forward. Thomas could see their features now. The
younger of the two was clean-shaven and the older man sported an impressive
moustache. Now the older man spoke again: “It’s usual custom for privates to
stand to attention in the company of senior ranks, Private Highgate.”
Thomas felt sick. He got to his feet and saluted. The younger man, this
Lieutenant Martins character who appeared to be no older than 25, stood right
in front of Thomas and looked straight into the boy’s eyes. Then he did
something Thomas wasn’t expecting. He slapped him hard across the face, and
Thomas fell backwards. Before he could pick himself up he felt cold metal
handcuffs being clicked around both his wrists. And before he knew it he was
being frogmarched into daylight and thrown into the back of a brand new
Vauxhall D-type. In normal circumstances, a ride in a motorcar would have been
something to get excited about. But this was one journey Thomas wished he
didn’t have to endure. The older man drove while the younger one talked
incessantly about Cambridge and something called a ‘May Ball.’ The car bumped
along country roads for a few miles before reaching a small town. They turned
into a side street and through an innocuous archway and then through a
courtyard with two sentries standing guard at the entrance to what looked like
a municipal building or town hall.
Thomas was bundled out of the car and led inside the building. A young
man opened the door and saluted. “Fitzy, be a good man would you and take
Private Highgate here down to the cell.” Thomas was led down a spiral of stone
steps into the dank bowels of the building. The young soldier looked
sympathetically at him. “The name’s Fitzgerald, but you can call me Fitz. Would
you like a cigarette?” Thomas nodded. The soldier unlocked the handcuffs and
handed Thomas a cigarette and lit it with a match. “You’ll have to wait in here
I’m afraid.” The young man opened a large, heavy metal door and revealed a bare
room. Thomas stepped inside and the door was closed behind him with a heavy
metallic clunk, followed by the turning of a key.
Thomas sat on the stone floor and took a deep drag on the cigarette.
He’d been a complete fool. He should have scarpered from that barn as soon as
that deceitful bastard had hung up those stupid birds and gone and informed the
authorities. God knows what was going to happen to him now.
An hour later, Thomas heard footsteps outside and the door key was
turned in the lock. The young soldier appeared at the door with a metal tray.
“It’s not exactly meat and two veg but it’s the best I could do in the
circumstances.” He handed Thomas
the tray on which stood a glass of water, a hunk of bread smeared with chicken
fat and an apple that looked as if it had seen better days. Thomas accepted it
with gratitude and the young man closed the door.
Thomas hadn’t eaten anything for two days and devoured the meagre meal
in no time. No sooner than he had, the young soldier appeared at the door
again. “Colonel Mayhew has summoned you to the courtroom. I’ll take you there
now, but I’m afraid you’ll have to wear these.” He produced the handcuffs and
put them around the boy’s slender wrists and led him back up the winding steps
and along a long corridor.
The courtroom looked more like an old classroom. In front of him was a
trestle table behind which sat three men. Thomas assumed that Colonel Mayhew
was the man with white hair in the middle. To his right sat the man with the
moustache, and to his left, a bald man with spectacles. The young soldier
seated Thomas in an upright chair before the three men, saluted earnestly and
left the room, closing the door behind him.
Mayhew looked at Thomas disparagingly. “Private Thomas Highgate,” he
began, “you have been brought to this military court because it is our belief
and contention that on 5th September you wilfully deserted your
company – the Royal West Kent Regiment who were positioned a mile south of the
River Marne. And we have it on good authority that when discovered by Mr John
Burton in a barn just outside the village of Tournan, and questioned by Mr
Burton as to your motive for stealing his work clothes, you responded with the
following words: ‘I have had enough of the army and this is my way of getting
out of it.’ You are therefore being tried for dereliction of duty, desertion
and cowardice. I needn’t remind you, Private Highgate, of the seriousness of
these charges. What, if anything, do you have to say in your defence?”
Thomas hadn’t prepared for this. He was confused and tongue-tied. “It’s
true,” he stuttered. “I did say those things to Mr Burton… But I wasn’t
thinking straight… My best friend had been killed, and I came close to being
blown to kingdom come… The noise… The deafening noise… It was unbearable… You
have no idea… I just couldn’t carry on…”
The room fell silent. Mayhew chose to break it. “I think you’ll find that
we do have a fairly good idea about the nature of this conflict, Private
Highgate.” He paused while the two beside him nodded in agreement. “And is it
because you were not feeling yourself that you chose to steal the work clothes
in which you consciously and wilfully chose to desert your company, your mates,
your King and your country?”
Thomas’s eyes began to glaze with tears. This wasn’t fair. Why did he
have to suffer this unpleasant barrage of accusations? All he knew was that he
had been too petrified to carry on. The tears streamed down both his cheeks and
he looked at his feet in embarrassment.
“Well, Private Highgate? Are we to have an answer for the record? Or do
we assume blithely that there simply isn’t one?”
Thomas looked at the three figures through watery eyes. “I don’t know
sir.”
Mayhew turned to his colleagues either side of him. “Any further
questions?” Both men shook their heads. “Very well. This court is adjourned.”
Mayhew made a hand gesture towards the door and Private Fitzgerald appeared.
“Would you care to take the accused down to the cell now Fitzgerald while we
deliberate?”
Precisely what took place next in that so-called courtroom is a matter
of conjecture. Whether the three discussed the merits of the case and took into
account the defence (what little there was of it) and the tender age of the
accused, we shall never know. What we do know, however, is that Colonel
Mayhew’s deliberations took no more than 10 minutes.
Thomas was led back up the steps by Fitzgerald and had barely taken his
seat before Mayhew asked him to stand.
“Private Thomas Highgate, this court finds you guilty of dereliction of
duty, cowardice and wilful desertion of your regiment. This is a most serious
crime against the Crown for which this court can only pass one sentence. I
therefore sentence you to death. Do you have anything to say?”
Thomas stood motionless. He couldn’t comprehend the enormity of Colonel
Mayhew’s words. His thoughts turned to the girl he intended to get engaged to
back in Blighty after the war. Her name was Sarah and he could see her long
auburn hair and could almost smell that cheap perfume she dabbed behind her
ears. Then he saw his old friend beaming out from the black and white scene by
the seaside. The tears began to flow freely now. But he didn’t care. Nothing
mattered anymore. As far as he was concerned, there wasn’t going to be an
‘anymore.’
Mayhew nodded to Fitzgerald who took Thomas by the elbow and led him
back to the cell.
There were two chairs placed in the middle of the bare room, one of
which was occupied by an elderly chaplain with a ruddy complexion and a
receding hairline. “May the Lord bless you and keep you, my child. May he look
down upon you with great loving kindness and resolve you of your sins. Amen.”
Thomas looked at the old man in his dog collar and crucifix with
incredulity. “They can’t just shoot me. I’m not yet 20… they need me back on
the farm… and I’m getting engaged to my girl after the war… and anyway, I’m not
a coward.”
The chaplain took the boy’s hand. “It’s not my place to pass judgement,
my child. I can only offer solace in the form of the Almighty in whose infinite
wisdom, mercy and universal loving kindness we must all take comfort.”
Thomas took his hand away. “But I was never one for church and all
that.”
The chaplain smiled. “It’s never too late, my child to see the light and
embrace the Lord… Shall we recite Psalm 23 together? It might help.” He opened
his leather Bible and began to read by himself while the boy sobbed. “The Lord
is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me lie down in green pastures: he
leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the
paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death…”
The chaplain’s voice broke off as the heavy metal door opened. It was
the bald man with spectacles who had presided over the hearing. “It’s time,” he
whispered to the chaplain who closed his Bible and rose. Thomas was led out by
the bald man and his puny wrists were handcuffed once again. They walked back
up the stone steps for the last time, then along a long passageway that
eventually led out to a small courtyard at the back of the building. Thomas was
led by the man to the far end of the courtyard where a wooden stake had been
recently hammered into the ground. At this point, a number of uniformed men
forcibly tied Thomas to the stake. Try as he might, the lad couldn’t resist; he
simply didn’t have the strength. Once he had been secured tightly to the post,
one of the men placed a sackcloth bag over the boy’s head and pinned a white
square of fabric to the centre of his chest.
Six young soldiers were then led to their firing positions and issued
with rifles; one of which would be unloaded. This was the one solitary
concession to human compassion, ensuring that not one of the executioners would
ever know for certain if they’d been responsible for the fatal bullet.
The bald man stood to the side and wiped his spectacles with a handkerchief. He replaced them on his snub little
nose and inspected the firing squad. “Alright men. Present arms.” All six aimed
their rifles at the pathetic figure tethered tightly to the post.
Thomas was breathing very deeply. He was in a rowing boat and Sarah was
sitting beside him in her Sunday best. The sunlight was glinting off the
ripples and little ducks bobbed as they made steady progress upstream.
“Take aim.”
He was precariously trying to uncork a bottle of bubbly and his girl was
giggling like there was no tomorrow. “Careful Tom, you’re going to rock the
boat!”
“Fire!”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Postscript: Thomas Highgate was the first of 306 members of the British
armed forces to be executed during the Great War for cowardice, dereliction of
duty or desertion. He was just 19 years of age. In November 2006, the UK
government pardoned all 306, but to this day Thomas Highgate’s name remains
conspicuously absent from Shoreham’s war memorial.
'Scared to Death' by Alex Pearl - one of 23 short stories published by Mardibooks in an anthology to mark the centenary of the First World War, and in remembrance of all those who have fallen in conflict.
Buy the book here
'Like' the Facebook page here
'Scared to Death' by Alex Pearl - one of 23 short stories published by Mardibooks in an anthology to mark the centenary of the First World War, and in remembrance of all those who have fallen in conflict.
Buy the book here
'Like' the Facebook page here
