Short stories and scrapped ideas [1]

Letter from the trenches

Dear friend,

Life in the trenches is horrific and I wish to be back home in Germany. They span at least ten feet deep and the bottom is filled with water leading to rats. The makeshift homes reek of rotting flesh and stale blood from the wounded. Gunfire exchanged between us and the allies led to no sleep. Not to mention gunfire isn't the only fighting, we are also fighting amongst ourselves, bickering about the little things. I don't know how much we will fight amongst ourselves but we've been here for so long and I do believe it will continue.

Personally, my muscles ache with soreness from walking and laying down in the mud. The mud isn't the only bad thing down here. On top of rats, water and mud there is disease and infections from not being able to properly stitch up wounds. And acquiring warmth is hard as most of us only have a flimsy, thin blanket. Despite all this I am thankful and lucky to not have been wounded yet. However I do sympathize with my comrades who have fallen and been wounded.

I know my time will come when I am sent to no man's land and I am quite fearful of that time. I've seen what's happened out there and it's only made worse by the stories my comrades tell each other. We are using what we can get to our advantage though. The allied powers seem to send out the allies they don't like despite having the same goal of taking us down.

The French have fallen back but neither side seems to be gaining anything despite our new invention of the flamethrowers. Days are ticking by and I miss my wife and children very much. It's been at least three months by now since this initial battle started at Verdun. I will admit the French are working hard to keep this town fortified and safe. Despite all this I have found myself wishing I was home and I know many others would want the same. Many German soldiers seem to have lost their will to fight because of how long this has been going on but I fear this battle will last longer than we all would like it to.