Guns and Horses

Chapter Nine: Fields of Sacrifices

CHAPTER NINE

B L A C K J A C K

January 17' 1917

◈⊙◈

Danny lay underneath me, his legs submerged under my body. There was nothing I could do, my ankles stung as the barbed wire dug further and further into my skin. Pain ran over my entire body and all I could head was the ragged breathing of Danny as he tried to pull himself out from underneath me. Not even the screams from the horses beside me made me turn. I couldn’t move. Nothing could change my mind, the pain dulled as I stayed rooted to the spot on the ground.

Danny screamed and I spun my head around to look at him as he finally got free from my weight. His face was covered in blood and from his mouth ran a gash that poured out a metallic smelling liquid I had come to learn was blood. His legs were crushed and I noticed jagged white bone that cut through his trousers, it didn’t look right, as if his legs were on backwards. I could tell by the look in his eyes that the agony he was enduring was far worse than my own. He turned his head a way from me and began to retch, his body conversing with spasms. When he turned his head back so I could see his face, I noticed the black tar that dripped from his nose and covered his lips. 

Another scream filled the air and I twisted to see what it was, with great pain to myself, before us lay the young boy who had talked to Danny only moment before, his arms and most of his torso was missing and part of his face was hanging off by a piece of tendon, he had been torn apart my machine gun fire. I whinnied in fear and tired to back away but my front legs were stuck under my body and the barbed wire simply tightened around me, locking me beside this monster of a man.

“Joseph,” Danny whispered, I wasn’t surprised he didn’t recognize him.

“q….ui…ll….m…eeee,” the boy gurgled, he could barley move his non excitant mouth as he stared at Danny through his one remaining eye.

The battle continued around us and I could hear the cries of my kin dyeing around me. It wasn’t right, we were dragged into this by humans, for a solely selfish human fight and all we got in return was death. Do you think they bothered to save us when we were injured? No they shot us. After all we were simply a less efficient machine. Stupid, simple animals that had no feelings, no thought, unlike humans right? Humans and their ideals, they believed themselves better than other animals,  after all they knew how to massacre each other and us lesser mammals didn’t.

I turned back to Danny, my friend, my one ally in this hell. They’d even managed to kill him, these humans, kill someone who’d done nothing but be good. He reached his hand down to his gun, tears falling from his eyes, they were for Jim, me, Rose and Joseph. They were for Leo, Fletcher and his friends, they were for my Sarah and the life we were missing. I knew Danny hadn’t know Sarah but I couldn’t cry so he did it for me.

The gun shock in his hand as he pointed it at the boy’s head.

“K..ii.ll..mmm.e…” The boy’s words were clear this time and as Danny closed his eyes, the guns fired, the sound was masked by the other firearms and Danny’s pistol shot was so insignificant the sound hadn’t even broken the air.

We turned away from the body, no desire to look any more at the disfigured boy that had been so excited for his first battle. Danny crawled over to me, pain gripping his face and he tried to pull his legs through the mud.

“Hey balach,” his voice was weak and wheezy. He rested his hand on my neck. “We’re alright, ye understand me, we’re strong unlike the others.” He was lying to himself, to us, I could tell by the way his eyes began to flick in and out of cognizance. “When this war is over I’m going take ye back to Scotland and show ye off to Rose. Ye’d love her she’s a big fan of horses, and, and when are children are old enough they will lean to ride on ye. I haven’t decided where ye will live, I don’t think ye going to fit in out small house but you can enjoy the green hills their beautiful in the summer.” His body shock and his deep wounds seemed to rip further into his skin. “And…and we can lie on the fresh fallen snow as Rose cooks dinner and the sweat smell of Christmas goose…because it will be over by Christmas,” his voice was becoming weaker and a stream of black internal fluid began to drip faster from his nose, mouth and ears.

He collapsed onto my back and whimpered like a lost puppy. I tried to comfort him but my neck had gotten caught into the barbed wire and locked me down into its death grip. Danny shock and I could tell he was slipping away and slowly I felt my own heart beat weaker as his pulse withered. A bitter breeze rolled across the land, biting at my wounds and filling the air with the metallic smell of blood and smoke and as I lay in that field I felt my eyes slip shut.