Through Hell & Highwater

Opening - JUL 4, 1987

"Grab your Enfield, and prepare to go over!" A sharp, piercing whistle grinds through the air, as the officer in charge of Baker Company readies his Pershing service revolver and adjusts his uniform. Men all around him scamper to grab their rifles and don helmets. Shells burst in the hellish din of the trench. Screams echo from the dead and dying, and those unfortunate enough to have been treated by their company medic, a sadistic demon of a man: keen to practice his "experimental" surgical abilities at any opportunity. He can still see the amputated limbs and bloodied forms of those who had undergone the knife, supposedly "saved" by the hemomanic sadists who serve in the King's Army. He grabs his rifle, and locks the bolt into ready position; the smooth-pull system cleaning sliding a .303 sits into the chamber. Glancing down at the locket of his daughter, Private Anders of the 4th grimly readies for the surge over the battery. "On my orders" says the officer. Every man steels himself for what faces above the walls of their fortifications. "Charge!" Three blasts echo from the whistle, and battle yells from men surrounding him fill his ears. The cracks and whistles of the bullets from a distant Woffen machine gun echo in his ears. This is it, he thinks, no turning back now. They swarm out of their position, like soldier ants from a hive. Bodies twist and snap as the 7.92mm bullets from the Woffen machine-gun cut them down. Anders runs past, swerving left and right to avoid the wall of brass being thrown into their path. He runs through the smoke and blood, desperate to survive. Desperate to escape. Desperate for the only thing keeping him alive now: the chance of seeing his daughter again. A short figure of an unlucky Woffen rifleman caught out of cover looms before him. Him or me, Anders thinks. The trigger of his rifle offers little resistance, and the crack of the .303 igniting accompanies the swift kick to his shoulder. A thin line of smoke wafts away from the open chamber as he opens the bolt and ejects the spent round. More lazily drifts from the barrel. He watches as the first man he has ever killed gasps, grabs his throat, and falls to the ground coughing blood into his mask...