Chapters (45)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Prologue
- 2046
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- About the Author
‘Bent? My nose is bent?’
‘Yeah, bent, like . . . like broken . . .’
‘It really hurts.’
‘Well done, chaps! Right, stop dithering about now and get him away . . . and don’t forget the other meds.’
Two
Two
1943
The sentry coughs into the night, exhaling a plume of hot air that steams and hangs before evaporating. He bends his legs to stimulate the circulation. His gloved left hand rests on the barrel of the machine gun while his right holds the cigarette.
Harry watches him from the shadows of the verge not more than twenty metres away, knowing the wooden guard hut behind the sentry gives cover from the biting wind. He also knows the sentry has nothing to do for the next two hours but smoke and stamp his feet and look up at the million stars shining in the blackness of the night. In two hours, the sentry will report using the radio in the hut and he will do the same thing every two hours until he is relieved. After that, he will go to the mess, get some hot food and then report to his section head before getting some sleep. When he wakes, the young soldier will get hot food from the mess and report to his section head before coming back to what must be the worst sentry position any soldier has ever been allocated.
There is a war going on. Country against country and a world being conquered by the power of the Third Reich. Brave men earning medals for acts of outstanding bravery while the sentry gets hot food and reports to the section head before coming back to stare at the same bloody stars every night. Harry can sense the frustration in the sentry. The way he huffs and grips his machine gun and sighs with boredom. A man who dreams of being in firefights killing English and American soldiers.
The sadness of it becomes even more striking when the young German soldier curls his lips and pretends to fire his machine gun and by that single action he shows just how young he is and why he is being used as a sentry instead of a front-line soldier. Harry waits for the sentry to light another cigarette, knowing the sentry’s night vision will be momentarily ruined by stupidly staring at the lit match. He goes forward. Slowly at first, then bursting up to a hard sprint.