“Hi,” I said, “I would like to enlist.”
“How old are you, sonny?”
“Seventeen,” I replied.
“Brilliant. Now just fill in this form please.” He handed me a piece of paper with a set of questions on it. I scruffily completed the questionnaire and handed it back to the officer.
“Thank you,” he said, “just bring yourself and some basic belongings to the station at dawn on Saturday for standard training. I’ll see you there.”
The week quickly passed and it soon came to Saturday morning. I kissed my mother goodbye. I wasn’t going to see her familiar face until the war until the war was over.
“Please be back soon,” she said, as a tear rolled down her cheek.
“I’ll try!” I said. I turned my back and walked to the end of the garden path.
“I’ll send you some of my salary in a couple of weeks”
“I love you!” she cried “ You will always be in my mind.” And with that in mind, I started my short walk to the station.
The journey was long, but comfortable. As the train stopped at its final destination I peered through the window. The army school was a grand, red-brick complex of about five or six buildings, perched on the top of a large grassy hill.
. I stepped on to the station platform and I saw the man who was at the enlistment office.
“Good to see you made it,” he exclaimed. We started to walk up the steep path to what I assumed was the main building.
“How long is training?” I asked.
“ Usually four to six days, but it may take longer if you want to become a specialist in some aspects of fighting, such as a machine-gunner or a trench technician.
We reached the top of the hill.
“Your bedroom is on the second floor. I think you’ll find everything you need there.”
I skipped up the two flights of stairs and found a long, thin room filled with bunk beds. I walked down the middle of the two rows and found my name attached to a bed halfway down the right side of the room. I was on the bottom bunk. Here I found a large stack of grey and green clothes.
“Hello. You must be John Sampson. Pleased to meet you.” An arm jerked down from the upper bunk. “My name’s Robert Neekle, but everyone calls me Bobby.”
“Nice to meet you too, Bobby.” I shook his hand.
Just then a loud bell rang from downstairs.
“Dinner is being served!” A voice rumbled through the ceiling.
That’ll be Sergeant Trotts. He’s going to be our leader in the Somme.
“He tries to act all tough,” Bobby started, “but everyone knows he’s really a softie. The only reason he is a sergeant is because he has a rich family and they paid the government for him to have the privilege. C’mon, we’ll be late!” As Bobby said this, he jumped down from the bed and rushed down the stairs.
Lunch was revolting: two-day-old cheese and onion flan with uncooked potatoes. The only reason I ate it was because I was starving. I hadn’t had anything to eat for breakfast because I was too excited. I don’t see why I came now; Fall In is a lie.
Afterwards, I quickly got changed for my first lesson: shooting practice. This was just a couple of battered hardboard in a muddy field. What made it even worse was that Sergeant Trotts himself was teaching us
“Here are your rifles.” As he announced this he handed to each of us a brand new gun. “During your service to your country, these are your responsibility. Keep them clean, well oiled and loaded at all times. It is not my problem if it breaks. You will have to repair it yourself or just do without. Now, to load your gun, pull back the barrel and insert a magazine. Then just release the latch on the side and it is ready to be used. To aim, line up the top of the sight above the trigger with the one at the end of the barrel. Now fire!”
By the end of the lesson I had shot eight magazines of twelve bullets each, and with these, I had shot five bulls-eyes on the target.
These valuable but tedious lessons went on for another four days, including trench building, maneuvering and first aid. After this, we were told that we were to be traveling to the Somme that evening. I was already shattered from the training without this. I hadn’t washed for two days and I was hungry. I was fed up already.
The journey this time was cramped and hot. We traveled to France by boat.
After we had arrived we were promptly forced into trucks and driven near to the small town of Serre.
We were shown to our trenches: our home for the war. They were only about four feet wide and six foot deep, and 1 of that was underwater. It was about three o’clock in the morning and we were allowed to go to sleep at last. Th only problem was that that, in the distance, shells were still being fired. I knew I wasn’t going to get that much sleep tonight.
As the sun rose over the misty horizon, I awakened to the smell of burnt sausages.
“Sneaked these from Sergeant Trotts’ private stash!” Bobby exclaimed. “He gets sent them over here every week. A senior told me earlier.”
“What’s the time?” I asked.
“Eh, about seven I think”
Bobby handed me the primative fry-up on a piece of shell shrapnel.
“Is this clean?”
“Of course. It’s just I couldn’t find any plates that hadn’t been broken.”
“So why did you actually enroll?” I inquired, as we both started to eat.
“My father fought in the Boer war in 1900. According to him, he loved it, so he forced me join up, to follow in his footsteps.” I was then distracted by the sight of the sergeant at the other end of the bay.
“Quick! Trotts’ coming!” I shouted. We both dropped our plates (if you could call them that) and quickly kicked them under the duckboards.
“Ah. Private Neekle and Private Sampson. Just to let you know that you’re going over the top after lunch. I know it’s a bit early during your trench life but we really needing a big push today. And, of course, stand-to is in ten minutes.” Bobby and I looked at each other in amazement. Not even a week into my “soldierhood” and I was already going to enter no-mans-land.
“By the way,” Trotts continued, “some of my sausages Mother sent me have gone missing; have you seen them?”
“No Sir!” We yelled in unison.
“Good. See you in a couple of hours for a final check. Toodle-pip.” As he walked away we loaded our guns ready for the dawn watch.
Stand-to was nothing like it was in training: it was for real. Shells whizzed above our heads from the Jerry trenches and the sound of the machine guns was immense.
The first wave of German soldiers came at twenty-five past seven. As they charged, bullets came flying at us. Luckily, we were surrounded by metal sheets and sandbags.
I cocked my rifle. I shot. The bullet narrowly missed a enemy’s head. I tried again. Missed. The Germans were closing in on us at a remarkably quick rate. Many had already been shot but those who were still alive were attacking at full pelt. I held the gun securely. This time I aimed carefully. I gently pulled back the trigger. I heard a muffled thud. A figure emerged from a dust cloud. It was a German soldier. Blood was frothing out of his mouth. I could see the whites of his eyeballs flickering from where I was standing. Suddenly, he stiffly fell into the mud with a squelch. My mind was numb of guiltiness. I had just killed someone I didn’t even know. He could have had his own family back home, just like I do. Just then I heard the words
“John! Look out!”
That is all I could remember. When I woke up I was in a hospital.
“Excuse me, Nurse?” I asked as a woman walked by.
“Is Bobby okay?” The nurse was silent. Then a slight smile grew on her face. He came around the corner in a wheelchair.
“I lost both my legs” Bobby stated.
“I can see” I replied.
“At lest you’re okay; you were in a coma for eight hours.”
“What happened to us?” I asked.
“We got caught in a shell blast. We’re the last two left from our bay.”
“You’re both going home when you’ve recovered for a couple of days,” said the nurse.
“Brilliant. I can see my mother”
“You come and visit me if you like”
“ That’d be great”
After I had seen my mum, I caught the train to Bobby’s house. We were friends forever after that. We told our story to everyone we meet, and do you know what? They do respect us just as Fall In suggested.