Eleven Eleven

CHAPTER 20

1.00 p.m.

Rhodes limped over to Axel, who was standing with Will, staring at the great cloud of smoke and dust rising from the railway station.

‘Top hole,’ he said to him, speaking incomprehensible English. ‘Rotten luck if we’d copped it, eh!’ Then he held out his hand to shake. ‘Lieutenant Rhodes. No hard feelings,’ he said with a smile.

He turned to Will. ‘I think we ought to let this fellow go.’

Speaking to Axel in German he said, ‘We’re supposed to consider you a prisoner of war, but I think it would be better if you headed off east to the German lines – catch up with your unit. They can’t be far. If we hold on to you, you’ll probably have to go to a prison camp in England and it’ll be months before you get home. If you go now, you might be back with your family before the week’s out.’

‘Thank you,’ said Axel. ‘I would like to do that. But I’m worried about the townspeople here. They tried to kill me before you arrived.’

‘You wait here a second,’ said Rhodes. ‘I’ll sort that out. Oh, and you’ll need something to eat and drink.’

He walked down the street to a British supply trailer and spoke to the soldier who was guarding it. Then he returned with a ration pack and a water bottle. ‘That’ll keep you going, lad. You can go now.’

Axel was moved almost to tears. ‘And hang on,’ said Rhodes, ‘I’m coming with you. I’ll take you to the edge of town in case anyone else thinks it’s a bright idea to detain you.’

Axel turned to Will and Eddie and gave them a stiff salute. ‘Danke, dass Sie mir das Leben gerettet haben,’ he said. ‘Ich wünsche Ihnen Glück!’ Thank you for saving my life. I wish you well.

Axel could see Will wasn’t sure he wanted to salute a German, so he put out his hand again. ‘Thank you for what you did,’ Will said. ‘I wish we could have been friends.’ Axel didn’t understand the words, but he saw a tear in his eye.

The town was small, and Axel was soon on the outskirts. He liked having Rhodes with him, although neither could think of anything to say to the other. The events of the day had been too momentous for pleasantries.

Rhodes looked around. There was no one about. The road ahead was deserted.

‘Can’t see any of the locals. I think you’ll be safe. Go quickly. And here, have a bar of chocolate too,’ he said, and bid Axel farewell.

Axel saluted again and Rhodes returned his salute with a smile. Then he turned and hurried back to his unit.



Axel continued down the road out of town. The further he got, the safer he felt. The chocolate bar Rhodes had given him felt like a bar of gold in his hand. This bar was not army issue, its packaging was too gaudy – five paintings of the face of a young boy with five different expressions – from worried to delighted. It seemed odd, after such horror and deprivation – to see something so jaunty, so frivolous.

Axel tore off the paper and the silver foil and broke a chunk off. He savoured the moment, the bittersweet aroma, the lovely crumbly feel of the stuff, melting slightly in his filthy hand. He had stopped worrying about washing his hands a week into basic training. He popped it into his mouth and as it dissolved on his tongue he was transported home to Wansdorf and the last time he had eaten chocolate. He had been twelve then – still singing in the church choir. His mother had given him the chocolate as a reward. Axel had sung his first solo at the Sunday Eucharist, the Bach cantata Ich Habe Genug, and the whole family had come to listen. He had never felt more proud in his life. Even poor Otto, his older brother, had come.

He imagined his sister’s face as he returned to the village. He could picture how pleased Gretl would be to see him. Now the war was over, maybe he could find work playing the piano in the halls and taverns in Berlin. And maybe, when Gretl was a little older, she could sing alongside him.

His pace picked up. He felt a vigour he had not felt for weeks – he was going home.

The sun poked out for a brief moment, and Axel felt its warmth on his face. He swallowed the smooth chocolate, thinking he had never tasted anything quite so delicious. He broke another piece and let it melt on his tongue, stopping to savour the moment. He decided then and there he was going to eat the whole bar. When he got back to the German lines, he certainly wasn’t going to share this with strangers!



On the top floor of his house on the edge of the town, Georges de Winne squinted through the sights of his rifle. When the Germans went last night, he had finally plucked up the courage to steal a few rounds of ammunition from a pack they had left in the square. The German boy was at the edge of his range, he reckoned, but the sudden burst of sunlight made it easier to draw a bead on him. And, for the moment, he was standing still. Perfect. He wasn’t going to let that Boche go; he didn’t care what age he was. Four years they’d lived in his house and eaten his food. He felt a mounting rage – one that he had nursed and nurtured over the long years of occupation. De Winne held his breath and his finger tightened around the trigger.



When Axel vanished from sight, Will turned his attention again to Eddie. He was asleep or unconscious. Where was the ambulance? Will tried to shake him awake. Failing to rouse him, he ran off to look for medical orderlies. It had been over half an hour since the first orderly had seen them.

Will couldn’t find anyone from the Medical Corps so he decided to look for an ambulance himself, searching each side street for a dirty brown vehicle with a red cross on the side. After three minutes, he saw one in the distance, close to the road that led past the railway station, and ran over to talk to the driver. There were orderlies inside, and he could even see the white headscarf of a nurse. ‘We have a pilot, badly injured, on the far side of the square,’ he said, trying not to sound too upset. ‘He needs attention. I can’t rouse him.’

The driver patted a hand on his and told him to return to the injured man. The road ahead was blocked with fallen debris, he explained. They would find another route and come to attend to this man as soon as possible. Will was to wave and identify his position as soon as the ambulance found a way into the square.

Will rushed back, desperately hoping he might find Jim on the way. Eddie was still unconscious but his breathing was regular. And his colour looked better than it had been. Maybe he was just exhausted. Will put a hand on his shoulder. ‘They’re coming, Eddie,’ he said. ‘You hold on a little longer.’

A minute or two later he heard the judder of an internal combustion engine and saw the nose of the ambulance peep from a nearby side street. Will cheered with relief and stood up to wave them over.

At that moment a loud blast ripped through the square close to where he was standing. In an instant Will felt the heat of the explosion burn his face, then a sharp stab – like the blade of a knife at the top of his forehead – then nothing.



Over on the far side of town, Georges de Winne is startled by the sudden blast. The bullet he releases merely grazes the side of Axel’s head.

Axel falls to the ground. There is a sharp pain just above his ear, but he quickly realises he has not been seriously injured. Gathering his thoughts, he runs as fast as he can. Bullets punch the ground around him, but de Winne has run out of ammunition by the time Axel finds shelter in a nearby copse. Blood is pouring down the side of his head. But it is only a flesh wound. In the distance he can see the smoking chimney of a Gulaschkanone. He runs forward, breathlessly calling out to the soldiers as he approaches.



Back in the square the ambulance crew tumble from their vehicle, thinking an artillery barrage is falling on the town. They crouch close to the wall, awaiting further destruction.

‘Which bloody idiot is still firing shells?’ asks the driver. ‘The war’s supposed to be over.’

‘Maybe it was one of ours with a delayed-action fuse?’ says a stretcher-bearer. ‘There was an assault planned here for this morning.’ He sighs. ‘Maybe they sent it over the night before.’

There are no more explosions so they peer around the corner. Close by, they see the facade of one of the buildings overlooking the square has fallen in on itself. The blast has overturned a hay cart and two bodies are lying lifeless on the ground.

The nurse quickly gathers her medical kit. Most of the time she works in the field hospitals, but sometimes she goes out behind the front line, acting as a translator for the British.

‘I’ll go,’ she volunteers. ‘You see who else might have been caught in the blast.’

She walks towards the two prone bodies with her usual detachment. She heard the morning’s news, of course, but like so many others she feels indifference, perhaps a mild relief that it is over. It is too late for her fiancé, Auguste, and her brother Julien. But as she approaches she feels a small stab of pity for these two before her. Caught on the last morning. The fortunes of war.

Both of them are still. There is blood, but nothing missing or torn open. Nothing too grotesque. One wears a leather flying helmet, the other is the British boy they spoke to a few minutes ago.

She goes to the airman first. As she kneels down, she can see he is breathing, just, but she instinctively knows he isn’t long for the world. He is ‘expectant’ – the field-hospital triage category for beyond help.

The British boy lies motionless and is covered with mud and dried blood. He is as limp as a rag doll and there is no pulse. There is a fresh wound on his forehead but otherwise he seems unmarked by the blast. She has seen it many times. Artillery shells and bombs have unpredictable effects on their victims. Some would be turned almost inside out with the force of an explosion. Others would seem asleep, with slight or no visible wounds – only the terrible stillness of the dead.

She turns again to look at the pale, bloodied face of the airman and recognition dawns. With a start she sees the edge of her scarf poking just above the neckline of his leather jacket. It is that pilot she often sees at the American airbase. She likes him, he is sweet, although he does remind her of a frisky puppy, always buying her drinks and trying to talk to her. All that joie de vivre snuffed out like a candle. What a terrible waste. He had such an appetite for life. What was his name? Eddie. She had seen him just last night. It had been a wild evening, with too much wine, and everyone singing songs around the piano. When he’d asked for her scarf as a good-luck charm, she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. After all, it had only cost her fifty centimes in a little junk shop in Paris.

She touches his face with her hand and leans closer to talk to him. ‘Hello, Eddie. It’s me, Céline. Can you hear me?’

The sound seeps through to Eddie’s fading consciousness, and something in his dying mind stirs. They are sitting on the grass at the Tuileries Garden, close to the Louvre. She is resting her head on his shoulder and caressing his face. The sunlight is brighter than he could ever imagine and he is so happy he feels like he is floating in the air.



Two other men from the ambulance crew come over carrying a stretcher apiece. They place them on the ground and lift Will Franklin and Eddie Hertz on to them. One of the stretcher men goes over to the ambulance to fetch a couple of blankets.

‘I’ll stay with this one for a moment, if you don’t mind,’ says Céline, still crouching by the airman. And she stays with him until she is sure his breathing has ceased. She pulls the blanket over his head. The young British soldier lying close by with blood all over his face hasn’t moved a jot. She shakes her head and looks around for other injured men who might need her attention.

A few minutes later an orderly approaches the two lifeless bodies. ‘Have you done their tags?’ he asks a man with Red Cross armbands.

‘Not yet,’ he replies.

The soldier pulls back the blankets and briskly snaps off one of the two identity tags Will and Eddie both wear around their neck. He looks at Will’s. ‘Thought so,’ he says to himself. ‘That’s Sergeant Franklin’s brother. I wouldn’t like to be the one to tell him.’

He turns to his companion and says, ‘We’ll come back for these two later,’ and walks away.



On the far side of the town square Sergeant Jim Franklin has caught up with his platoon. When the shooting in the forest started again, all of them, even he, just snapped and fled like frightened starlings. They had scattered out of pure terror, each one expecting that bullet in the brain, each one operating on pure survival instinct.

By the time Sergeant Franklin came to his senses, only Ogden was still there with him. Hosking soon caught up with them. Will had vanished.

‘Not a word,’ Franklin had warned them. ‘Not a word of this to a soul.’

They walked back to their previous position and some artillery men told them their unit had gone into Saint-Libert. And had they heard the news? The war was over. Jim Franklin was too tired to be happy and too upset about the men he had just lost. And he was too worried about his brother.

Now an anxious man runs up to speak to him and points. Jim walks towards the two stretchers he can see placed on the cobbled ground at the far end of the square. The railway station is still billowing smoke, but he barely notices. Everything seems to be taking place in a dream. His feet move forward on the solid ground but Franklin feels like he is wading through a morass of deep, sucking mud. His throat is tight, his chest heavy; he curses himself for having lost Will in the woods.

Jim approaches his brother’s shroud, wondering how on earth he is going to explain all this to his mother. He can picture her on the doorstep, getting that black-bordered telegram.

Choking back the tears that rise like floodwater, he pushes away the blanket. The blank eyes of Eddie Hertz stare back at him. Jim sees at once this man is a pilot and pulls the blanket back over his face.

His eyes alight on the other covered stretcher, but he is too overcome to look. He thinks of Will’s face – the lad had barely started shaving – and he begins to cry great gasping sobs. He sits on the cobble square and it all comes flooding out. For the first time ever he doesn’t care if the men see him. The sodding war is over now. They can think what they bloody well like.

Far in the distance, Will hears a strange wailing sound. His ears are still ringing, and he has a terrible pain in his head. There is a stifling, musty smell in his nose and an itchy, scratchy feeling on his face. He wonders if he is dead, but his rational mind dismisses the idea. He remembers a great flash and then nothing. He seems to be far, far underwater, but he is slowly coming to the surface.

Jim pulls back the blanket from his brother’s face just as his eyes flicker open.





FACT AND FICTION



Eleven Eleven is structured around the final day of the Great War. Altogether, close to three thousand soldiers on both sides died on that final morning. Most fatalities occurred along the American sections of the front line as many American soldiers were ordered to fight to the last minute. An unlucky few on both sides were killed after eleven o’clock, in misunderstandings, and from stray artillery fire and unexploded shells.

In Chapter 6 the signing of the Armistice on Marshal Foch’s private train in Compiègne Forest is based on eyewitness accounts, although the narrator of this chapter, Captain Atherley, is fictitious.

All other characters, and what happens to them in the novel, are fictitious, although their age reflects the youth of many participants in the war. The Belgian town of St Libert, close to Mons and the French border, does not exist. Aulnois and Prouvy do, but were not affected by the events in the book.

William Franklin, Axel Meyer and Eddie Hertz are based on no real individuals, and the fighting units they belong to are either fictitious or took part in other actions on that day.

Because the story is set at the very end of the Great War, Eleven Eleven does not depict the suffering of soldiers on all sides caught up in the interminable trench warfare of 1914–1918. Have a look at L’enfer by Georges Leroux on Google Images to get a glimpse into why this conflict still haunts us a hundred years later.





ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


A big thank you to Ele Fountain and Isabel Ford, my two invaluable editors at Bloomsbury, Dilys Dowswell, who read and commented on all my first drafts, and Neil Offley who helped me fulfil a long-held ambition to visit some of the battlefields and memorials of the Western Front. Christian Staufenbiel kindly gave his time to advise on the German words I’ve used.

And thanks, as ever, to my agent, Charlie Viney, for his tireless support, and Jenny and Josie Dowswell for looking after me.