My Brother's Keeper Read Online Free Page A

Alfie soon realised these were for the mortars.
    He watched a three-man Royal Artillery crew setting one up. It seemed pretty basic – an iron pipe three feet long and six inches across, with a metal plate for it to stand on and a couple of rods to support it in a diagonal position, the whole thing painted theusual drab Army green. The bombs came in wooden boxes, sinister black globes of iron twice the size of a cricket ball, with sticks attached to them like handles.
    â€˜Look like toffee apples, don’t they?’ said one of the Artillery men with a smile. ‘They’re not very sweet when they go off, though. Kill a man at twenty paces.’
    Two dozen boxes were stacked behind the mortar, each one holding a dozen bombs. Alfie tried to work out the total, but he’d never been much good at sums and gave up. He only knew it added up to a lot of death.
    That evening after stand-to, Alfie sat in the dugout with his mates, eating the meal Ernie had prepared. It was bully beef and biscuits again, although Ernie had managed to rustle up a couple of tins of peaches for afters. George tried a few jokes, but Cyril and Ernie weren’t interested, and before long they all fell silent. Then Jonesy appeared – he always checked on the men in the evenings – and Ernie beckoned him over.
    â€˜So what do you know about the new captain then, Sarge?’
    â€˜Why are you askin’ me?’ said Jonesy. ‘I’m not the bloomin’ oracle, am I?’
    â€˜Come off it, Jonesy,’ said George. ‘You’ll have made it your business to find out. I bet you know what he likes for his breakfast and his mother’s maiden name.’
    â€˜I think you boys are mistakin’ me for someone who indulges in tittle-tattle.’ Jonesy scowled at them. ‘Now if everythin’ is tickety-boo here, I’ll be off.’
    â€˜Maybe the Sergeant needs a little something to wet his whistle,’ said Cyril.
    Jonesy had started to walk away, but he turned to them again, raising an eyebrow. Cyril retrieved a bottle of French cognac from the rear of the dugout and handed it to him. Alfie had tried the cognac once. It had burned his throat like liquid fire, and he hated it more than Army rum. Jonesy, however, clearly had a liking for it.
    â€˜Don’t mind if I do.’ He took a huge swig and handed back the bottle, then glanced over his shoulder and leant further into the dugout.
    â€˜Can’t tell you much,’ he said, his bark lowered to a whisper. ‘All I know is he got himself a bit of a reputation when he was with the Fifth Battalion, at least if the nickname they give him is anythin’ to go by. They called him Mad Jack. You boys take care, now.’
    Jonesy nodded a goodnight at them, then headed away down the trench. Ernie, Cyril and George exchanged dark looks. Alfie tried to keep his face blank, but it was hard to conceal his excitement. How he would love to earn a nickname like that!
    The mortars were to start firing the next morning, half an hour after stand-to. The Company had been warned, and Alfie could feel an air of tension along the line as the moment approached. He bagsied one of the trench’s parapet periscopes – an upright wooden box two feet high containing an arrangement of mirrors – so he could watch the attack. The first shot fell in no-man’s land with a dull crump that sent a fountain of mud twenty feet into the air. The second landed well beyond the German line. Then the mortar crews found the range, and bomb after bomb dropped into Jerry’s trenches. Alfie was sure he could hear screams.
    After ten minutes or so the mortars fell silent. Alfie wanted to cheer like you do at a football match when the referee blows his whistle and you know your team has won by a long way. But the trench was strangely quiet. He looked round. It was empty – his mates and everyone else had vanished.
    All at once Ernie’s head