Golgotha: A WWI Trench Murder Mystery

Chapter One

Armentières 1916

A shell screamed overhead and impacted somewhere behind the ruined section of the trench Sergeant Hank Ash and the rest of his squad were pinned down in. All sported the cloth patch of the 1 st Australian division—a white square surrounded by a blue square. The unit had been gathering a fierce reputation since entering the war. Most of the soldiers also wore two chevrons on the lower sleeves of their jackets, each recording a year served since boot camp. The stripes heralded these were Gallipoli veterans—an accomplishment that had begun taking on hallowed status amongst arriving new recruits.

Across the battlefield, artillery shells tore at the ruined countryside, along with the vulnerable flesh of anyone exposed to this manmade maelstrom. Any organised structure to the Australian attack had long since disintegrated under the German defensive onslaught, and the fighting was dissolving into individuals making sure the men under their immediate control continued to move toward their objective.

‘How many grenades we got, Red?’ Ash yelled at one of the men behind him.

In Gallipoli, the Australians had proven themselves unique, as every soldier not only had upcoming battle strategies explained to them, but they were encouraged to show initiative and exploit any opportunity that arose during the chaos of combat. This simple step meant that instead of an attack force grinding to a halt with the death of an officer, each trooper knew what needed to be done and had the ability to get on and do it. This was a skillset the Diggers had brought with them to the Western Front, and though new to the style of trench warfare fought in France, the savvy Australians were catching on fast.

Throughout the shell hole, men patted themselves down and held up fingers to indicate what each was carrying. After a quick count, the South Australian nicknamed ‘Red’, for his almost-white blond hair, yelled back, ‘About thirty, Sarge.’

Lying on his back to keep as low as possible, Ash pulled a small mirror from his breast pocket and angled it so that he could peer over the lip of their makeshift foxhole and examine the obstacle before them.

Called ‘Pinchgut’ by the Australians stationed nearby after Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour, the enormous concrete bunker sitting on top of a ridge over the village of Pérenchies was their target. The village had been a quiet burg before the war, crowning a small crest with a scenic view of the surrounding countryside and the distant city of Lille. When the war began, this elevation proved beneficial to the invading Germans, and they had fortified the area around the town, which became the key to their defence of the region. Not only did it supply the Germans stationed there a view of the Allied trenches stretching out across the countryside, artillery spotters also used the unobstructed view to direct accurate fire against any enemy movement on the low-lying lands. Worse, recently an electric searchlight had been placed along the stronghold, and this was often turned on the Allied lines at various times at night, making a sortie into no man’s land a fatal one.

Allied command was aware of the danger the position presented and kept promising to send wave upon wave of screaming men charging up toward Pérenchies. No attack was ever organised, however, and local Allied troops had taken it upon themselves to try to knock out Pinchgut during a series of night attacks. Each time they were driven out by ferocious German counterattacks.

Then the Australians arrived.

Though no braver than the troops of other nations fighting along the Western Front, what made the Australian men different, and ultimately more dangerous, was their esprit de corps. Where most Allied soldiers were conscripts, forced by their government into a uniform and to carry a gun onto the battlefield, every single Australian was a volunteer. They had not been conscripted and pushed toward the front lines—the men from Down Under had chosen to be there.

Though they had supposedly been sent to the quiet Armentières region to learn how to fight and survive along the Western Front, having their positions shelled and bombed, and their men constantly sniped at had left the Aussies in a serious mood to remove this thorn from their side.

The battle for control of no man’s land then intensified as the jovial Australians took on the challenge as though it were a new sport. For some time, the most professional units looked at the territory between both armies as theirs, and they would send out heavy patrols to take control of no man’s land once night fell. Here, they would try to capture enemy soldiers to interrogate, ascertain what the enemy was up to in their own lines, and perhaps even lay out a listening microphone and trail its wire back to their own trench. The idea was to take control of the unclaimed region and make it fatal for an enemy unit to try the same tactics against them.

There was also the act of souveniring. The Australians were keen to get their hands on German weapons, uniforms, and equipment to show the folks at home, and this added incentive made them ferocious patrollers into no man’s land. This theft became so epidemic that after several months being stationed across from the Aussies, many German units began to complain that something needed to be done after they continually entered their trenches in the morning to find much of their equipment gone.

It was during one such foray that someone in the Australian lines had decided it would be a good idea to secretly head over to the German lines and get rid of the searchlight and destroy Pinchgut for good. This little sortie soon grew into a small attack when the extent of the defences around the position were mapped, and other squads were asked to join in the fun.

Soon, hundreds of Australians had either snuck in to attack Pinchgut or stood ready in their own trenches to help withdraw the attackers if things got too hot. One of those squads was Ash and his men, who had managed to sneak most of the way across no man’s land before hell erupted around them.

The German defenders must have had someone manning a listening post somewhere and had sent a warning about the attack, as the Germans suddenly opened fire, but their defence was pretty light and the Australians believed they still had an opportunity to pull off their mission. Confident his men would know what to do when the time was right, Ash worked out a quick plan of action against the stronghold, then asked the nearest troopers in the shell hole what they thought. As he explained his idea, he wiped away the tears streaming from his eyes with a sleeve, caused by a teargas shell that had fallen short and exploded nearby. Everyone had breathed a sigh of relief when they’d discovered the gas wasn’t one of the deadlier flavours.

Night had fallen as the men crawled into their current position, and all were dirty from head to toe, yet the brief flash of bright white teeth from their grins told Ash the squad was ready.

‘Okay, boys, let’s go.’

With three men tossing grenades before them, the rest of the squad charged one side of Pinchgut, toward a spot Ash noticed the German guns had trouble traversing to cover. As the detonating bombs made the enemy think twice about leaning over the top of their trench, the Australians ran forward. Many swept the enemy line with fire from the Lewis light machine guns they were carrying. Between this hail of bullets and the barrage of bombs, the squad managed to reach the outermost edge of the main trench leading to the back of Pinchgut and slide in.

A few surviving Germans rushed the Diggers, but a volley of Lewis fire and a few well-placed Mills bombs forced them back. The foothold the Australians had created was soon widened as other soldiers, seeing Ash and his men breach the trench, rushed forward. Hundreds of Australians and even a few Canadians from a neighbouring trench began fighting through the German lines, overwhelming the defenders and forcing their way closer and closer to the concrete bunker.

Within the constraining depths of the trench, the battle devolved into a hand-to-hand fight. Like some chivalrous battle of old, the large bulky guns and modern explosives were ignored for fear of killing friend along with foe. Instead, more traditional weapons were used; roughly made clubs and maces were pulled from backpacks, along with knives, bayonets, and knuckledusters. All were put to good use.

Foot by foot, the troopers bludgeoned their way through the defenders and soon made it to the rear of Pinchgut. A few men scrambled up the concrete sides of the bunker, pushing Mills bombs and jam-tin grenades through the gun-slits and shell holes. Inside, muffled explosions and high-pitched screams followed, yet the fight raged on.

Those soldiers closest to the bunker mopped up the few remaining Germans about the area, while the Allied officers who’d survived the assault began organising what troops they had left for the inevitable enemy counterattack.

Overturned Maxim machine guns were repaired and repositioned to cover any path leading toward the bunker from the German rear, while new trenches were dug and holes in the defences filled. Men were sent forward to watch for any German movement, and reinforcements and supplies were called forward from the Allied lines.

If the enemy wanted the position back, they were going to have to fight for it.

Ash and his unit had been amongst the first to enter the bunker, and the gruesome spectacle of what their attack had achieved greeted them in the form of the broken, shattered, limbless bodies of its former occupants. While checking to see if anybody was still breathing, the Australians rifled pockets and backpacks for anything of value, all the while pushing deeper and deeper into the structure.

The few Germans to survive the attack and determined to fight on were quickly dispatched with hand grenades and pistol fire. The bodies were carefully collected in case of boobytraps and thrown out into no man’s land. A small team of men carrying a spool of thick wire between them were ordered back toward their own lines, and carefully they began laying a communication cable to the bunker.

Within an hour, the troopers from the 1 st Australian Division were communicating their success firsthand through these field phones, though most of what they said and what was said to them was lost in static and other background noises. They managed to report that the men had pushed further along the edges of the former German lines, rolling up the Kaiser’s defences like an old, dirty carpet. The entire town of Pérenchies now lay under their control, and its new defenders awaited orders from headquarters. When these came, they were exactly what the tired, bloody Diggers didn’t want to hear.

‘We have to hold until relieved,’ the newly arrived Colonel Blackburn exclaimed to anyone close enough to hear. A former lawyer from South Australia, he had been unaware of the attack, but was professional enough to rally what men he had to exploit the hole in the German defences. He was also more than aware that the bush telegraph of gossiping soldiers meant all his men would soon hear about the command.

Cursing and bitching in the way all soldiers have since the dawn of time when feeling hard done by, as they moved back to man what defences they could, the Australians took a few minutes to catch their breaths and begin the long, cold wait for a German response.

They didn’t have to wait long.

Well behind the German lines, information was flowing in about the attack. Some was comprehensive and useable, some scrambled and full of panic. What the German commanders could tell was that an unknown number of Allied troops were moving from a region called Armentières, their forces reportedly having penetrated a limited number of places. Reserve units were already moving to stop any further intrusions, but this only created further confusion when no such attacks arrived along the rest of the front. Paranoia of the unknown was taking its hold on the German army.

Clear communication became as difficult for the Germans as it was for the Allies when more reports flowed in. Some were accurate, most were not. Some were old and out of date, while others were fresh and precise. This meant it wasn’t until morning’s first light that there was a clear picture of what had occurred. Almost everywhere the German line had held, except at Pérenchies, the Allies had taken over the entire section. As the sole Allied gain, the next move for the Germans was clear. Every gun, every cannon, and every free soldier was lined up against what remained of the fortress above the enemy-held French village.

The order was then sent to the entirety of the 4 th German Corp that, as one of the most dominating features on the Flanders battlefield, Pérenchies was to be retaken at any cost.

Chapter Two

Pérenchies

Ash and his squad had just finished excavating a part of the former German trench and were looking for water to refill their canteens when the first shell screamed out of the night sky. This smacked into the earth with a deep whumf, and though falling some distance away, the sheer size of the explosion rattled the air in the men’s lungs. Reacting on sheer instinct, the men dropped into the trench to ride out the bombardment.

The German engineers and artillery units of IV Corps knew the location of every strongpoint and trench in their former defences, and they zeroed in on these positions with deadly accuracy. Hundreds of shells thoroughly pounded the hill, and once they felt nothing more could be achieved there, they moved their guns to the countryside surrounding the village. The hope was to catch any units moving across the open terrain to support what Allied troops had survived the bombardment. This action was so effective that very quickly this approach was known as ‘Dead Man’s Road’ to the Australians.

With the bombardment finally moving away from them, Ash and his men began digging themselves out from the mountain of fresh dirt that had been thrown across the trenches. Many of those who had sheltered in the rough holes cut into Pinchgut would remain buried forever.

In just a few hours, the barrage changed the landscape surrounding the ridge, making it look more like the scarred face of the moon. It had the desired effect, though, as many of the new defensive points were useless after being torn open and exposed by an explosive shell.

Seeing the danger, Ash urged his men into action. ‘Move, you bastards. We have to get a new trench dug.’

‘But this hole is okay, Sarge,’ one voice moaned from the rear.

‘Grab a shovel and start digging before I dump you back down there and leave you for good,’ Ash threatened, pulling his own spade from his pack.

The handful of soldiers followed suit and retrieved the large shovels that partly led to their nickname ‘Diggers’ and, mirroring their leader, began flinging dirt high as they worked a new trench. No one was sure if the name originated from the shovel or the Australian habit of wearing the detached tool head in a bag over their groin for protection. Fruitlessly, many British officers had bawled out the Australians when they arrived in Europe for not wearing the shovel and its bag correctly, attaching it to the belt over a buttock cheek. Instead, the Diggers wore it across the groin for the obvious protection a large chunk of steel could provide.

As they dug, the troopers positioned themselves in such a way that they could look out for a German counterattack and ensure they were not exposed to snipers. With the new trench completed, Ash ordered some of his men to reposition a nearby Maxim machine gun, while the rest were sent out to look through the other collapsed trenches for any survivors buried within the mud and clay. While they worked, several runners appeared from their own trenches; some carried messages, other tins of bully beef or boxes of ammunition. The couriers also supplied the latest gossip from across the battlefield, including a rough tally of who’d been ‘knocked’ from the division and those who’d been wounded. As it always seemed to be these days, the news was depressing as far too many of those killed were Gallipoli veterans. The survivors of the attack in the Dardanelles were becoming a rare breed on the fields of the Western Front.

On hearing about the death of a fellow sergeant he’d been close to, Ash picked up a dirt clog and in frustration threw it at a group of passing German prisoners being escorted to the rear lines. Never intending to really hit anyone, when the clog burst on the head of a short German with a huge handlebar moustache, a soldier guarding the prisoners yelled out:

‘Oi! Cut that out.’

Sheepishly, Ash held up a hand in apology. He then turned toward the grinning faces of his men.

‘Next time pull the pin, Sarge.’ Red laughed, lobbing another as though it was a hand grenade. ‘They’re no better than a potato otherwise.’

The dirt clog sailed through the air and landed just as a German shell dropped out of the sky and exploded. Ash dived into the trench with his troopers, snatching for his gun as he tumbled in. As shrapnel and debris filled the air, Ash strained his ears, trying to hear above the whistling, concussive booms and screams of injured men for the one thing everyone in the trenches feared above all else. Soon enough he heard what he was listening for.

Starting soft, but growing louder and more intense, the sound of the long-awaited German counterattack grew nearer. Tens of thousands of men with bayonets drawn, streaming across the rubble and cratered French field at the Australian lines, was a cacophony that even an artillery barrage could not hide completely.

At some unseen signal, the salvaged Maxim guns opened fire, with the stream of death spitting out of the large guns scything through the massed Germans. Gaps began appearing in their ranks, yet still they bravely charged forward, trying to retake their former position.

An artillery shell screamed out of the heavens and hit just in front of the trench Ash and his men were fighting in, sending a tidal wave of dirt rolling over the foxhole. It only took a few minutes for the soldiers to claw themselves out of the loose dirt, but by then the German attack had moved closer.

Looking around to ensure everyone was free and armed, Ash yelled, ‘Up and at ’em, boys.’ He then aimed over the trench and fired into a large mass of enemy nearby. Next to him, a line of 303s and Lewis guns opened up, adding to the carnage amongst the German troops still moving up the hill.

Loading and firing as fast as possible, the troopers never noticed when the first attack faltered, and they began fighting a second, then a third wave. Time and thinking had ended, now replaced by the simple act of fire, load, and fire again.

Further toward the town, the remaining defenders began to tire, allowing the massed German advance to creep closer and closer. From simple dirt grey figures, individual faces moved into focus, only to be cut down by an Allied bullet. Despite the butchery, in a number of places the Germans managed to enter the Pinchgut trenches, and here brutal hand-to-hand fighting broke out.

Exhausted as they were, the Australians fought on. When their ammunition was gone, they used their bayonets and guns as clubs. When the guns were broken or lost, they used their fists and helmets. Savage, bitter men tore at each other’s bodies with whatever tool came to hand. Modern warfare devolved into the tribal warfare of something far older, when strength of arm and ferociousness of the soul was a necessity for survival.

Men covered with so much grime they were unrecognisable to each other fought on and on until a stray bullet hit an unexploded, half-buried artillery shell. The subsequent detonation cleared a large section of the trench and buried Ash and his men.

Pressed hard by the German advance, the surviving Australians began withdrawing into the few surviving strongpoints, and though they were still fighting, they were desperately outnumbered and outgunned. Worse, what few messages they sent to their own lines were either ignored or disbelieved. As far as Allied command was concerned, if there was an Allied attack going on in the Armentières region, it was an unofficial one and everyone involved was on their own. They ordered no more supplies or reserves to move forward, leaving the desperate and increasingly outraged Australians to hold until the decision could be reversed.

By the time they’d dug themselves out once more, Ash and his men were now behind the enemy line, which had pushed well into the Pinchgut complex. Creeping through what was left of their trench for a quick inspection, Red slunk his way over to Ash and asked, ‘What we gonna do, Sarge?’

Taking a deep breath as though he was about to dive underwater, Ash slid back into the collapsed trench and fished out a Lewis gun and a few of the round-shaped magazines the weapon needed. Since first receiving these hand-held machine guns, the Australians had become highly adept at their use, carrying and firing them from the hip as they charged rather than laying prone and setting them up on their almost useless stand—indeed this was often removed for the sake of weight.

Hefting the large weapon over his shoulder and climbing out of the hole, Ash passed the gun to the men for inspection to ensure it was in working order.

Getting a thumbs-up, Ash winked at his squad. ‘I don’t know about you boys, but I’m getting back into this fight. I need to ask a very hard question to a German over there.’

The survivors nodded in agreement, grabbed what weapons they could, then on Ash’s signal hauled themselves out of the trench and began duck-walking toward what was left of the fortress.

After two hours of non-stop fighting, the diminishing Australians left in the trenches began backing around the last bend before the base of Pinchgut. The large concrete bunker was now the final section still controlled by the Diggers, who were determined to make it cost the enemy more than it was worth.