One Good Turn Read Online Free Page B

that bulge without a German on a hill seeing you and shooting at you with a rifle, or a cannon, or a howitzer. They specially like shooting at artillery trains. Are you ready for it, mate?'
    'As I'll ever be,' the prisoner said. He went to make sure his team of horses were ready, and that the ammunition wagon was tightly packed so the shells couldn't slip around.
    He was riding his lead horse through bullets and shells and pieces of flying metal and pushing it as fast as he dared. The enemy guns knew exactly where they were, had their range and were waiting for them. As soon as they got onto the narrow road, the bombardment shattered the sky. Lumps of metal hissed past his head. High explosives churned up the marshy earth on either side of the road. The mud that showered them was mixed with fragments of corpses that lay there.
    There was a scream from behind! He stopped. One of the horses in the team behind had lost half a leg. The beast was plunging and rearing, screaming with pain, and would soon drag the rest of the team and the ammunition wagon off the road and into the mud.
    'Ride on,' Sergeant Mitchell shouted. 'Get out of here! Get this ammo forward and maybe our guns firing can keep them quiet for a while. It's our only chance!'
    The boy got his team going again. Once they were moving, the horses were easier to control, if you could stop them bolting. He kept his eyes ahead, trying not to take in the scene beside the road: dead horses, dead men, bits of men. Ahead of him and to the sides, he could see the low hills where the Germans waited. The battery he was trying to reach was a quarter of a mile further on, where there was a drier patch of ground.
    When he reached the field guns, they were silent. Two had been knocked out, and one was surrounded by shattered bodies. The only one with a fit crew had sunk so deep into the mud that its barrel was pointing at the sky.
    He saw what he had to do.
    He called one of the gunners over. 'Help me unhitch the ammo cart and we can pull your gun out of the mud with the horses!'
    The gunners unhitched the wagon, and he led the frightened beasts across the mud to the gun. Men from the other guns saw what was going on and came to help, as enemy shells howled overhead and exploded in mid-air, showering them with shrapnel. He coaxed the horses forwards and managed to turn them so the traces could be hitched to the back of the gun.
    'Come on, you beauty,' he whispered in the leading horse's ears. 'Get us out of here. Come on. COME ON!'
    He swung himself onto the horse's back, and leaned over its head to urge it on. He saw the great sinews in its shoulder shiver, felt its feet slip, hold, slip, hold.
    'COME ON!'
    The hooves gripped. The wheel of the gun moved an inch, then two. The men put their shoulders against the spokes and pushed with new strength and forced the wheel from the grip of the mud.
    The gun was free! The horses had done it.
    One of the gunners came up to him. His face was grim but determined. 'We'll be able to work the gun now. Thanks. What's your name, mate?'
    'Ransom,' he said. 'Private Chris Ransom.'
    'Well, you deserve a bloody medal. Now get the hell out of here.' A drop of rain fell on his face. 'Great. Rain. That's all we bloody need.'
    Back in his cellar, the prisoner breathed a sigh of relief. He had a name. Surely everything would be all right now.

Chapter Four
    John Stubbs stood on the firing step of the trench, his gun snugly tucked into his shoulder. Above the trench, a rampart had been built out of sandbags – mudbags to be more accurate – and he was gazing through a tiny gap over no-man's-land. Look through anything bigger and a sniper would put a bullet through your eye. Sometimes the men put an old steel helmet on a stick, held it above the rampart and took bets on how long it would be before it was shot. The shortest time Stubbs had seen was three seconds.
    He saw a movement and fired. The rifle kicked back into his shoulder and immediately his hand