Wars to End All Wars: Alternate Tales from the Trenches Read online

  For we carried our packs with Marshal Sare when Louis was our King.

  But Douglas Haig’s our Marshal now and we’re King George’s men.

  And after one ’undred seventy years, we’re fightin’ fer France again.’

  “They were coming alright an’ all I had to do were make ’em welcome. The corporal, he’s passin’ up an’ down the line pattin’ butts, givin’ encouragement, keepin’ ’em firin’. ‘We’ll get ’em, boys, we’ll get ’em.’ An’ he had ’em, too. They were as ready as I were me first time with the Other French ladies.”

  “They didn’t!” the reporter says. “They didn’t do no such thing as sing afore their attack. I was there and I know that ain’t true.”

  Sipping his stout, Jimmy is unperturbed. “Well, they should have. It’s like that damned Brit should have wrote: where there are Irish there’s singin’ and fightin’, an’ when we stop either, it’s Ireland no more.” He looks to V.A. for confirmation and gets it.

  V.A. says: “Well. I’d have to admit that he was correct about the loving part but I agree you’re just as correct about the singing.”

  Jimmy gives the reporter a smug grin and continues his narration. “Up they rose, pushing their rifles ahead an’ the volleyin’ continued. On the flanks, the machinegeweh an’ the light guns kept their raucous chatter. Watchin’ the whole mess, I begin thinkin’ to meself that discipline are a wondrous trait. They fired their lanes an’ anyone unlucky enough to be chargin’ through those lanes were pretty likely dead.

  “No, no, no! Don’t you be gapin’ at me with damnation in your eyes. War is ’ell an’ I couldn’t change none of that. But, I figured, an’ I were right, that them good Blue Cap noncoms were up to the challenge. Well, one of ’em were. Right out of Kipling he were:

  “A man in khaki kit who could handle men a bit

  With his bedding labeled Sergeant Whatsisname.

  “Your very own Sergeant Cork gleaned on to it straight away. He took himself to the flanks, worked his way to a nice little cubbyhole, an’ commenced to takin’ out the gunners. I keep orderin’ the line to fire their lanes an’ sometimes they can hear me; they keep followin’ orders. It gets a smidge quieter with the light guns silenced but the racket stays pure hellish enough to keep the line’s eyes on their lanes. They took no notice of developments to their left an’ right or behind them. Three gun crews an’ their reserves lay sprawled about their guns, each taken down with multiple shots. An’ scurrying his way up to those guns came Sergeant Cork. I act like I don’t see him but you bet your sister’s virginity I kept watch. Bein’ the only officer about, I knew I were his prime target.

  “Sergeant Cork eased hisself into our trench, all the time keepin’ that damned Enfield a pointin’ at me while he watched the Hun line. By now, they was a few dead soldat sprawled against the trench wall but the livin’ were pointin’ and firin’ their lanes with steady enthusiasm even though they wasn’t hittin’ much of anything. ’Bout this time, the corporal notices Sergeant Cork an’ turns his gaze to me with that quizzical gaze of his as if there was a order I could give that would set this mess straight. The disappointment in his eyes when I lifted my arms in surrender near brought my own self to tears. But, I held his gaze an’ give the sign.

  “‘Attention! Attention,’ he yells an’ turns to his troops. With great showmanship, he lays his Mauser on the ground an’ signals the men to do the same. Slow like, one by one, each Hun follows suit. Most of ’em haven’t seen Sergeant Cork but that don’t deter their actions. As I keep sayin’, discipline are a wonderful sight. Now, Sergeant Cork has his hands full with more than thirty prisoners of war. He turns back to me as if to ask for some help here but I haven’t stuck around. Now, I’m sitting in Sergeant Cork’s former cubbyhole watchin’ the show. An’ it were a good one. Almost giggled meself sick, I did.

  “But, you the know the rest of the story. You wrote it yerself so I won’t waste our time with that.”

  Jimmy accords himself a celebratory gulp of stout and waits for the accolades to follow. They are slow coming. The reporter takes his time mulling the recent history lesson, the expression on his face morphing from stunned to astonished to whimsical realization of a tale well told. Finally, he says: “So, yer tellin’ me that Sergeant Cork wasn’t quite the hero we thought he was; that he didn’t earn the Victoria Cross all by his own self, and that you deserve a share.”

  “Now, lad, dinna be jumpin’ at conclusions. I dinna tell it but you know he collected another platoon of prisoners an’ I had no part in that save, without that first bunch, he woudn’t have collected the rest. No, I don’t need no Victoria Cross nor no D.S.O. nor nothin’ even close. I got me reward from those Other French ladies. I jist thought you might be grateful to be enlightened ’bout the Not-Royal-At-All Dublin Fey Detachment. If you are or if you ain’t enlightened, makes me no matter as it’s time fer me to be amblin’ on down the street.”

  With that Jimmy downs the remains of his stout, slides back the chair, and proceeds to the Brazen Face’s front door passing on out into the dank and dreary dark. It took a minute but the reporter realizes he has a dozen more questions to ask so he hurries after Jimmy. Stepping out the front door he finds the street deserted, no sign of Jimmy Choice, just an elderly woman stepping his way. She’s a bit raggedy. Her hair’s been combed once but seems to have forgotten its manners and is now striking out in a hundred different directions. Her large, round, brown spectacles ride low on her nose. Her voice is as gravelly as her appearance. “Well, now, laddy, did you come to escort me into this fine establishment, is that it? Yer willing to buy a lonely woman a single malt or pint o’ stout? An’ there are those what say that chivalry is dead. I accept, lad; I do accept.”

  Continuing to seek sign of Jimmy Choice, the reporter shrugs off her comment and starts down the street. The reporter knows Choice could not have gone far. Behind him, the woman mumbles “Then, again, it may well be dead.” And she walks the other way humming to herself, “Mademoiselle from Armentierres. . . .”

  * * *

  Inspired by: Alvin C. York

  Dan Bieger

  Dan Bieger has been reading everything he could get his hands on since he was nine; writing since he was eleven; been doing little else since 1994, and enjoying both for as long as he can remember. He figures he has another ten or twenty years to continue the tour. You can follow him at holbrookandhe.com/blog.

  One Man’s War

  * * *

  G.L. Lathian

  “I’ve told you everything, what more do you want?”

  Lutz Bergmann peered out the window. An endless blue sky met plateaus of scorched earth and grassed plains, but the harsh beauty before him felt tainted by his wish to look upon lands deep with snow. A life spent in another place had his heart longing for home.

  The woman he spoke to sat behind a desk, a white coat draping her shoulders. “Not everything.” She moved the recorder aside and flicked to another page in her file. “You haven’t told me about the real Adolf Hitler.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “After many years of research we found a man who had spent most of his life in an asylum. He told us the story of how you tried to kill him.”

  “He died, you know that.”

  “No, you wrongly assumed a bullet to the back of the head would be fatal.”

  Lutz sighed inwardly as he turned from the window and shuffled toward the woman, easing himself into the leather cushions of a nearby chair. He had lived with one regret through his life and at its heart was Adolf Hitler. He stared at her for a time, recalling memories he had chosen to leave behind.

  “Turn off the recorder.”

  The woman returned his gaze then leant over. The recorder stopped with a click.

  “The story of Adolf is not just a story of one man, but also of me, and who I was at the time. . . .”

  It was October 1914. He stood behind me in the enlistment line seeming to carry the same anticipation I felt within
me. Seventeen, boys with dreams of heroism clear in our minds. They were calling it the Great War and I had a mind for greatness.

  “Next.”

  I stepped forward and handed over my papers. The lieutenant scanned them quickly before adding them to his pile and nodding to the clerk beside him. She handed me the only clothes I wanted to wear for the rest of my life. No mark of rank on any shoulder, but I knew by the end of my career they would hold many.

  “Lutz Bergmann. First battalion, Reserve Regiment Sixteen,” the lieutenant announced, waving me away.

  I looked about as I was jostled aside. Lines of hundreds stretched away before me and around us a commotion of trucks, carts, horses and soldiers gave me what I thought was my first glimpse of Germany’s true power.

  “Adolf Hitler. You’ve been reassigned to the First battalion, Reserve Regiment Sixteen.”

  I turned around and Adolf was there, hand outstretched. “I guess we’ll be fighting together,” he said.

  From the very beginning, he was an easy person to like.

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  He smiled beneath a moustache almost as distinguished as my own. “Is that a slight accent I hear?”

  “I was born in South Africa, but moved here when I was young.” I was surprised at the confidence in my voice, but I had promised myself that the army would be a new start for me. A chance to be accepted for the first time.

  “Really?” he said, slinging a satchel over his shoulder. “I’ve read extensively on the Boer War.”

  We walked back along the line, me recalling distant memories of lions, elephants, beaches and mountains. He asked more questions than I could answer, yet my stilted responses didn’t seem to have any effect on his curiosity.

  When we cleared the mayhem and found our new comrades, we changed into our uniforms, the air around us alive with our building excitement.

  “They better leave me some Serbs to kill,” I said, pulling on my trousers. It wasn’t just a statement for the others, I had dreams of glory and I knew that meant killing people.

  “I’d be happy with a Russian or two,” someone yelled.

  We’d thought our chance at the enemy would come quickly, but a month of training saw that hunger grow tenfold. My shyness retreated as the bond between us trainees grew and I soon found myself enjoying the company of others.

  It’s important to realise as a child I didn’t have any friends, preferring to spend time in books, more at ease with my imagination than the world outside my windows. But by the time I reached my early teens, the wonders of the written realm had spurred desires of my own. I wanted to be a man remembered as someone who did things others could not and I soon discovered that Adolf had a knack for doing just that.

  “I know you’re quick, Adolf,” I said as we walked down the line of tethered mounts, “but do you really think you can outrun a horse?”

  “Probably,” he replied, breath misting in the chill air.

  “Surely you need to be more confident than probably. I’ve never known a Jew to make a bet he wasn’t certain of winning.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “What, are you a Jew or something?” I asked.

  “No.”

  That was something about Adolf that never changed, he remained naïve to the true nature of the Jews, or at least that’s how I saw it in those years.

  We continued past the horses toward the captain sitting astride his black gelding at the far end of the pen. The pen itself was an oasis of calm within the bustle of the camp. Marching soldiers were led to and fro under the constant crack of gunfire and their officers’ orders. Trucks towing artillery cannons lumbered by on a narrow road that ran along the tent lines; twilight’s descent brought the orange flames of our campfires to life.

  “Look how smug he is,” I said under my breath as we stopped and saluted.

  “Pride can be a man’s greatest weakness,” Adolf whispered.

  The captain saluted then climbed from his saddle. “So which one of you am I beating?” he asked, glancing between us. “You two look alike enough to be brothers.”

  “Me, sir,” Adolf replied confidently.

  “Do you still think you can outrun me and my horse?”

  “It’s worth a try for a chance to win your cooker, sir.” Adolf handed me his diary and coat.

  I mention the diary because it was as much a part of Adolf as his uniform. Whenever a thought took him he would have it out in a flash, explaining that there was no greater loss to a man than his ideas. I’d often wake in the night to the scratching of his pencil.

  “Just don’t forget you’ll be on mucking duties for a week when you lose.”

  “I’ve not forgotten, sir.”

  “Good lad,” he replied, climbing back into his saddle.

  “So,” Adolf said, pointing to two helmets fifty paces away, “around those markers and back.”

  The captain nodded, gripping his reins and turning his mount.

  I stepped back as runner and rider made ready.

  Raising an arm into the air I waited for stillness. The moment stretched. “Go!”

  Adolf leapt ahead on even strides, the horse slower off the mark, but as they neared the helmets, the captain had closed the gap. Then, as they made the turn to come back, the horse’s weakness became apparent and I saw Adolf’s ploy. Where the man spun, the beast arced wide like a ship docking at harbour. A nose separated them at the finish, but there was no doubting the victor.

  I hooted and clapped my friend on the back as the captain rode back smiling.

  “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it,” he said, reaching down to shake Adolf’s hand. “You knew you had me from the start, didn’t you?”

  “I must admit . . .” Adolf replied, puffing. “I did, sir. No horse can turn as quickly as a man.”

  “Then I’ll be sure to choose the course next time. Regardless, a bet is a bet, come past my tent later and collect your winnings.”

  There were times like that day where I felt Adolf was seeing the world in colour, whilst I was seeing it in black and white.

  I can’t think of much more to tell you about our time spent training. It wasn’t until the First Battle of Ypres that I started to further understand who Adolf truly was.

  “Steady, men.” I heard the captain’s voice drift through the thick morning fog.

  “You ready,” I whispered to Adolf as he moved forward in a crouch on my right.

  He nodded.

  I twisted the strap of my Mauser around my hand, pulling the butt of the rifle into my shoulder. My eyes swept the wall of grey before me, dark shapes playing tricks on the mind. As the sun rose and the mists retreated, the first bullets came whistling over our heads, and into the sodden soil at our feet. A scream sounded away to my left and then the call for charge swept along the line like the roar of a wave. My throat burned as I took up the call and ran to meet the wielders of death. We dashed over fields of turnips and grassland, hearts thumping in our ears as their report came like cracking thunder.

  “Deutschland, Deutschland uber Alles, uber Alles in der Welt!”

  And then we saw them, and our bullets, singing their own songs of death, chased our cries. In what felt like strides we were upon them and the fight turned to the savagery only men who have seen war can know. Many people would think the death of one person would mean little to a man like me, but the eyes of the first I killed watch over me to this very day.

  We won ground that day and lost it the next. The second night saw our regiment hunkered down behind a stone wall between two fields.

  “So as I was saying,” Adolf continued, handing me my tin of steaming soup, the warmth seeping through my gloves. “We’re run by rich politicians that claim we all live equally, yet are they down here on the frontlines, shovels in hand, digging in for the night with the rest of us?”

  “Don’t preach to the choir,” I replied. “There just isn’t any changing it as far as I can see. Other than destroying the Jew
ified structure of our nation, of course.”

  “What is it you have against Jewish people?” Adolf snuffed out the cooker.

  “I probably have more reason to hate them than most. When I was five I watched on helpless as my mother screamed in my father’s face about his inability to provide for our family. She said it was his lack of manhood that had driven her into the arms of another. Some rich Jewish businessman who could afford to give her the life she deserved.” I sipped at my soup, watching flares climb into the sky and throw back the darkness. “Of course I struggled to understand what was happening at the time, but in the years that followed, my father opened my eyes to the manipulation of Germans under Jewish rule.”

  “You can’t blame the man being Jewish for your mother leaving,” Adolf replied, looking at me sternly. “Blame it on money if you need to.”

  “And who do you think controls the money?” I asked, not waiting for an answer. “You can’t deny that they run our banks, our law firms, our press and our industry. They feed us messages of socialism, yet Germans work all day and die young for lives of filth and poverty. Their false ideologies exist to support their own agendas, not ours. Money controls the world now and they control the money. Do you think the Kaiser has any power to stop what’s happening? The Jews don’t just control Germany, they control the world.”

  “Your anti-Semitism is not something I am unfamiliar with considering the times we live in and for Germans looking for a scapegoat, there is no easier prey in sight than the Jews. I just worry about the innocent people who would die if such a powerful a spiritual message were to be abused.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We both agree that Germany is a great nation, but if this war turned our cities to rubble the broken masses will need something to unite them, someone to blame if they are to rebuild. The masses can easily be swayed into thinking the Jews are oppressing them and if that hate were the driving force of a German revolution . . .” He paused. “Any leader that has ever conquered has had the belief and following of his people behind the messages he has stood for. Already I see faults in our nation’s choices in this war, we’ve seen the papers suppressing the exuberance of our victories in favour of staying gentlemanly. Unknowingly, they’re squashing their own spiritual message by dousing the enthusiasm of the people in regards to this war. When a fire must burn for years, do you feed it with logs or twigs when the snows are yet to fall?”