No Man’s Land – France - 1916

May you be in Heaven half an hour before the devil knows you are dead. Danny Harp’s mother often quoted this old Irish proverb. A proverb about death. Fear came unspoken with the cheery warning. Fear as he waited with the men of his company at the parapet of the trench for the moment the captain blew the whistle and ordered them over the top.

The whistle sounded. Danny pulled himself over the sandbag wall. The ground shook with every deafening shot the enemy’s eighteen-pounder long gun fired. His company continued to advance. Their orders were to destroy the German artillery across what their officers called, no man’s land. No man’s land, a stretch of land with tall trees that offered little cover.

Between the exploding shells and the adrenaline coursing through his veins, he barely heard the shouts of the men as the shelling shredded the ancient trees. He would give his right eyetooth for the small added protection of a dirt bank.

He couldn’t hear what Captain Harvey shouted, but the man was waving his arms and pointing for them to continue the charge forward. Danny scrambled, half stumbling, half trying to fly, to the nearest tree, the only cover in sight. As he looked back for Harvey’s next instructions the captain stepped forward. German bullets caught him. Harvey was jerked hard to the right, and then back to the left, before pitching forward.

He ran to Harvey. Blood poured from the captain’s chest, soaking his tunic and he was already sheet white. Danny thought him dead, but Harvey groaned when he rolled him over.

Danny cried, “Medic!” None were anywhere close. He saw the flash of a white armband like those the medics and stretcher bearers wore. “Medic!”

Rapid fire round from a machine gun came from the German lines. Danny lay across the captain’s chest. Harvey pumped his legs, his boot heels digging into the soft dirt as the man cried out in pain. No medic came. Harvey’s legs stilled. Danny rose to his knees but stayed hunched as the machine gun fire kept the company pinned down.

Their lieutenant ran along the frontline of men who shielded behind what cover they could find. Blowing his whistle, the lieutenant ordered the company to retreat. They were outgunned and outmanned in this battle. The lieutenant ran to where the captain lay, Danny beside him. “I’ve been calling for a medic,” Danny told him.

The lieutenant felt Harvey’s neck. “He’s gone. Leave him.” He screamed, “Run, we’re retreating!” Men in his unit fell around him in the field.

Danny tried to say a prayer that he wouldn’t die. There were so many things he hadn’t done yet. Brody O’Darry, his friend, tripped and fell in front of him, causing Danny to stumble over the top of him. “Jesus Christ!” Danny cried as he hit the grass on all fours.

Brody clutched his rifle to his chest and froze in a fetal curl, refusing to continue on.

“We have to get out of here or we’re dead.” Danny grabbed him by the arm, but Brody shook his head. Danny understood Brody’s terror because his own legs shook and his bowels felt loose like soup. Like Danny, Brody was nineteen years of age. Barely what seemed like a few years out of wearing short pants and fighting with sticks. Those sticks were now replaced with guns, and on most days, Danny had no idea what he was doing. He’d experienced nothing yet of life.

All of this was because a village woman gave him an envelope of white feathers and called him a coward for not fighting on the frontline like her sons. Danny’s naivety, his ego, and his family’s honor drew him to go against his older brother’s wishes and enlist. He should have listened to Colm. Colm was usually right. In the past, Danny would have rather died than admit that… but today, he would.

The field in front of them lit up like the devil’s own hellfire as German shelling rained down.

Danny and Brody huddled behind a tree. Luck had given them one with a larger trunk than many of the men who were being picked off like ducks in a field. This might not offer cover for long, Danny thought as he peered out from behind the tree. The British trenches were in sight. “We have to move. Now!”

Danny fought not to think and just move. “Ready?”

Brody finally bobbed his head. He darted out, and Danny followed. The two men ran.

The ground shook from another violent impact of a shell. Men flew up in the air like they were paper dolls as multiple rounds struck.

There was an explosion over Danny’s head. Something large and dark came hurtling at him. He tried to shield his face, but it was too late. It hit his face and knocked him backward. Blood sprayed into his eyes. Then the pain came. Crippling. He tried to gasp in a breath to fight through it.

He woke up to a black world. The last thing he remembered was being struck and struggling to stay conscious. Why couldn’t he see? I’m blind. He lifted his hand to his face. Were both of his eyes hit?

As he wiped at the blood, his vision slightly cleared. Excruciating pain throbbed from his eye to his chin. Danny patted down his cheek, and he felt bone. Where was his cheek? Where had it gone?

He tried to stand. The blood running down his face was endless, and he felt lightheaded from the loss. Danny’s knees sagged. He fell and then rolled to his back. He fought to open his eyes and saw Brody standing over him, crying.

Danny tried to say “go” but his mouth was full of his blood. The coppery taste made him want to vomit. Instead, he waved a hand for Brody to go on.

Brody nodded and then disappeared into the smoke. Danny was alone. No one should be alone when they die, but here he was lying in a field in France, worlds away from his family in Dublin.

He heard English voices and then someone dropped to their knees beside him. “Danny, it’s me, Jimmy. We’ll care for you now.” They wiped at his eyes with a soft cloth.

“Help me.” His voice felt weak. “I can barely see. Am I blind?”

“No, your eyes look to be fine. We’re clearing the blood from them.”

“Can you stop the bleeding?

“I’m doing my best.”

His brother, Colm, was a medic. He would know what to do. But, Colm wasn’t there like he’d always been when they were boys. He saw the splinters of the tree that protruded from his skin making it difficult to stop the blood. Every time Jimmy pulled one out, more blood came.

“Will I live?” Danny grasped Jimmy’s hand.

“I believe so, yes.”

Blackness engulfed him again.

****

“Where am I?”

“You’re at the camp aid station. A doctor will tend to you shortly.”

“What’s happened to me? Tell me truly, Jimmy.”

“You’ve terrible damage to your face, real bad. You’ll be going home. There’s no fixing you here.” Jimmy rinsed the bloody cloth and continued trying to clean the wounds. Danny’s vision cleared enough for him to read the pity in Jimmy’s eyes.

Danny touched his face again. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

Jimmy nodded.

“Bring me your shaving mirror,” Danny said, but Jimmy shook his head. “Please.”

Jimmy sent an aide to bring the mirror from his kit. The aide quickly returned, and Jimmy handed the handheld mirror to Danny.

Danny stared at the image reflected back. He didn’t know the man in the glass. “God in Heaven.”

The pain ebbed and flowed as the drugs flowed through his veins. He’d never see his family again. He couldn’t bear to have his mother see a monster. He would never touch the soft skin of the girl from the pub. He’d had multiple tumbles, and at least he had those memories, but he’d never know the true love of a woman.

Danny’s mother and sister would mourn him, but his mother wouldn’t know the true reason he enlisted. He had done it so the women down the way wouldn’t call him a craven coward. Did that matter now? A crushing thought came to Danny he’d never thought through before. Colm. What if Colm died on the battlefield too? Colm was right. Mum and Tildy will have nothing. Why was I so bull-headed? I’m a fool. I should have stayed in Dublin. Protected them, provided for them as Colm had.

Darkness swept over him again. The agony twisted him like nothing he had ever felt, but it wasn’t the pain from his wounds, it was the pain of a life lost… his.

The stretcher bearers arrived to take him to the transport tent and gently lifted him. The German shelling stopped so Danny finished his prayer starting with an apology for using the Lord’s name in vain, begging he’d die on the journey home. Every bounce of the stretcher made him feel like he would blackout from the agony.

The army doctor mumbled, “Poor bastard. Give him a strong dose of morphine, and pick out as much of the embedded splinters as you can. Then get him ready for the next ship back to England. There’s not much else we can do for him.”

Not much else we can do for him. The doctor’s words echoed in his head. His father returned from the Boer War and he remembered the disfigured men around town. People shrank away and turned their heads as they would walk by.

A twisted laugh almost bubbled out of Danny. The lasses used to whisper that he was handsome. Now, in an instant, he became one of those men, the men with the broken faces. Maybe this nightmare would be gone when he opened his eyes and none of this happened. His face would be whole. There were no other choices in the times they lived.

Danny let the morphine carry him into blackness and hoped that he would die dreaming of the green hills of Ireland.