Does it matter?*

"Vot are you starink et"
The guard shook his rifle in my direction.
"Get beck in line wiz ze uzzers und don't stare et me"
There were nervous titters from the rest in the queue. We were waiting for the latrines and the guards prowled menacingly. I had enough, and decided to break free. I ran from the line towards the wooden bridge over the moat. My heart pounded and a strange eerie silence settled over the camp. All I could hear was the crunch of my feet on the gravel and the pounding of my blood in my ears. Without warning two shots reverberated around the stone walls. From the corner of my eye I thought I saw someone fall, a child** perhaps, but I kept going, running. I reached the bridge over the moat protecting the old castle and there ahead, yes! I saw some familiar khaki uniforms. I swept over the narrow walkway and slowed to walk near the infantry section training in the green grass. I felt safe now, among the uniforms and chatter of the British Tommy.

A standard drill practise was underway when suddenly, with no warning shout, a pair of German fighters flew across us. We could see the pilot and gunner clearly, one of each in each plane, and you could see the arm throwing grenades down onto the training soldiers. The Tommies scattered and returned fire. Smoke drifted across the field and aircraft engines roared as the pilots turned on the power to climb and turn and attack again.

I watched the fighters fly across the blue sky, dotted with fluffy white clouds. The Corporal yelled at his men "incoming, incoming, free fire, free fire" and the Lee Enfield rifles spat their

angry bullets towards the attacking planes. But they were pretty useless. A single bullet just passes through the paper and wood construction usually doing little or no harm. What was really needed was a direct hit and, highly trained as they are, the chances of a rifle bringing down a plane were slender. More grenades where thrown at us and more smoke billowed across the field, catching in our throats and making us cough and sneeze as the Germans flew away, so they could turn and come in once more to finish the job they had started.

But high in the sky, circling like an Eagle, was hope. A British biplane had spotted the German attack and was gaining height, ready to pounce. It wheeled round and dove down down down towards the Germans as they started their third attacking run. They hadn't seen him, their attention on making the most effective and destructive pass over the infantry soldiers in the field. The soldiers fired on, each carrying more than 150 rounds of .303 ammo. And then a cheer from the men. One of the planes began to smoke. A lucky round from a rifle had done some damage. It was smoking heavily as it flew behind the trees and was lost to sight. One down, one to go. By now the British plane was hot on the heels of the remaining German. The planes screamed across the field, and the Corporal was yelling to his soldiers "don't hit our own chap".

The end was inevitable: the British plane was faster, more nimble and better armed. The Germans stood no chance.

The Tommies stood and cheered as the encounter ended England 2, Germany 0.


We all cheered. Hundreds of us.

Eeeeh, but.
We had a great day out yesterday at The English Heritage tribute to The British Forces at The Somme Remembered, 90 years on.

I've also written about the Somme in a more personal way in a post called The Last Post, but with the new beta blogger I can't seem to link to it. Since then I have discovered something about my other Grandfather and the Great War. And one day, I daresay I'll post about that too.

* yes, it matters.

** It was child, mucking about: made me laugh a lot. Every time they fired he fell over pretending to be dead.