The Guns Fell Silent

A Story by Stanley Wilson

Thoughts of a Tommy at the end of WW1

All of a sudden the guns stopped firing. The last hurrah was over. Sporadically the chattering of machine guns and rifles on both sides stuttered to a close. “CEASE FIRING!!!......CEASE FIRE!!” Screamed our officers. We stood on the parapet hearts in our mouths. As the dust and dirt from the shelling cleared. The subsequent silence was deafening. Who would have thought it? That silence could roar in your ears, louder than the screeching and whoomp of a shell? The RSM moved quietly behind us “Step down now lads...It’s all over.” All over? Emotions ran wild with us. Charlie Cobbler burst into tears and a great cheer rang out from our positions. Some of the men burst into God save the King. We sung our hearts out. Handshakes, smiles and hugs all round. Someone managed to produce some rum. One of the boys scrambled over the parapet, the young subaltern raised his pistol. Sgt Walsh quickly disarmed him. “Don’t you think that there’s been enough killing Mr Cartright?”

Peace, peace at last! But what is to become of us now? The medics scrambled over with us, into No-Man’s land. Trying to save the last of the fallen, caught in that last skirmish. Why did they make us try again for the last hurrah? Those buggers knew it would be over at eleven. Furiously the enemy, they were pounded by the artillery. Then tired and beleaguered shadows of men emerged from our trenches. Forced onward by the shrill whistle blasts and shouts from our superiors. One last Hurrah to win it outright.

From across the battlefield the grey uniforms slowly emerged. From their smashed up and battered positions. Carrying white flags, hands raised. They too were singing as they walked slowly. Just like Christmas nineteen fourteen, we met in the middle. I was the only original left from the old battalion. The sudden realisation of this knowledge dawned on me. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling at all. They were all gone, hanging on the wire or buried behind the lines. Most of them buried, uninterred and reburied out in No-man’s land by the shell fire.

As I shook the trembling hand of the smelly young soldier. “Kamerad....Kamerad!!” he cried. He couldn’t have been more than I was, when I joined up in Fourteen before it all started. Gaunt, filthy and starving. Ridden with lice and sores as we were. I had run away gripped in the excitement of the big adventure as we all were. I’d sent mum a letter. Telling her just as well be in it before the off. She was so cross with me, her letters were full of anger. But eventually as time passed they were full of pride.

The soldier and I embraced and we cried our tears. Tears for all our lost friends and comrades, but most importantly of all, tears of joy. It was all over, the war to end all wars.

Christ how long had it been? I’d been here from the start. All my boys gone, either maimed and sent home or hanging on that damnable wire. We tried to teach the replacements what we had learnt quickly. And our brothers from the empire. Tough and brave men from India, the cold and wet quickly did for alot of them. The Canadians and the men from down under. Hale and hearty brave, oh they were such brave men. So were the doughboys when they came. Even if they were late joining the throng. Except they died just like we did without learning from our lessons. What we had learned in blood and tears. In Fifteen Kitcheners Army arrived. Large as life, the PALS battalions. Brash and excitable as we were. It wasn’t to last though, the Hun quickly knocked off their swagger at Loos.

I copped it myself on the Somme with the new Army. One in the left shoulder as I rose from the trench after the whistle blast. I saw them mown down murderously by the machine guns. Just like a scythe cutting the hay. Wave after wave of those poor boys, slaughter on a scale you can’t imagine. Those murdering Generals kept them coming on. Even after they saw that the wire wasn’t smashed, like they said it would be. The Germans were safe, deep in their dugouts. They walked slowly in line lions to the slaughter. Rifles empty at high port, bayonets glistening in the morning haze. I found my officer at the aid station. Wounded in the guts, bleeding his life force into the dirt. Crying and saying sorry to the mass of casualties, that overwhelmed the medics. They all cried for Mother in the end, even the roughest and toughest of them. After a brief recuperation, I was sent back into the line. I was at Paschendale and Arras. One by one the boys I knew, loved and trusted went. Shellfire or snipers, gas. Oh that evil, evil gas. Here I am back at Mons right back where we started. We stopped them right here we did, stopped them dead in their tracks. The sea of grey halted by a handful. We couldn’t miss them. Boys just boys like us, out in the big adventure.

We chatted in groups in the battered and bloodied ground for a while. Smoking each others’ cigarettes, grateful at first to have survived. The officers barked at us, no fraternisation. I thought of home as we returned to the trench with a few prisoners. No they were beaten men not prisoners. Comrades they were, even if they were the enemy. Brothers in arms, who went through it all with us just the same. Except they were opposite us. Mum would be so relieved and Jenny Albright. She was Toms’ girl. He was the first at Mons. The game had become so very real. I wrote her and promised Tom as he died in my arms, that I would look after her. I wonder would she still have me after all this time? Would I be able keep my promise to Tom? But a promise is a promise all the same isn’t it?

To be honest it was Rachel Clancy that I admired at school. A big and cheerful girl, with rosy cheeks. I never had the courage to ask her to be my sweetheart. She went into service I heard and married a sailor. I wonder what has become of them? The smell of cordite and death hung like a blanket over the battlefield. The larks rose and begun their shrill song. It was blinking cold and wet. But not like Paschendale’s seas of stinking sucking mud. One thing for sure is when I get home, I’ll never tell them. Tell them of what we did to each other. Tell them of the sheer horror of it all. I only went home to Blighty once. And I didn’t go home. I couldn’t settle, so went back on the next troop transport after getting drunk for a week. I’d stayed in Clacton at Mrs Moffat’s boarding house. All people wanted to know was how many Germans had I killed. How many? I don’t know, I didn’t see many of them really. Not when I was in the line. Sure I saw prisoners in the rear. In the line we never got that close to see them. Except the first Christmas and now. I swapped capbadges with the German. We shared our tattered photos. He smiled as he was led away from the lines. What now then? All I know is killing and soldiering. What now for me and my comrades when we finally get back home? I didn’t have a trade, I was a soldier and now the guns, the guns they were silent.