The First Soldier

Ghost train

Stronvich returned from his break, in all honesty being back home was worse than the trench. At least he knew his place in the mudpit. Pytor was nowhere to be found. Supposedly he had gotten cold feet after getting married. Stronvich couldn't blame him. He wouldn't want to miss what could possibly be the last moments with his family either. Maybe if he hadn't left... no this was no longer about getting away from that drunk. He could think about it later, for now he would prepare the trench for defending the storms of steel sent towards it.

Dimitri handed him a bucket of water which was met with the end of the pump for the machine gun. American weapons were truly something to behold. "Come on! I know you are checking out that one Moscow girl that moved in down the street!" Dimitri jaded him about his crush on the young woman that had moved in a year prior. "Yeah, I was going to ask her out when we made it home."

"Ask who out?" another man arrived to take over Dimitri's position. "Dimitri was talking to me about a girl I wanted to woo back home." The soldier looked at him and around the foxhole, "you are the only one here." "Dimitri is right here!" Stronvich turned to point to his friend, but saw no one there. The place where he had been sitting with his rifle and bag now covered in nothing but old mud which had no prints on it. The soldier stepped back a bit from the boy, "Ok. just make sure you hook up the bucket..." The bucket that Dimitri had handed him was tucked into the wall across the trench from him. "What? But we already..."

The realization hit him just as hard as any bullet. Dimitri had died months ago. He had tripped over his friend's body and taken his tags back. He had been hallucinating him for the past hour helping with setting up the trenches. He sat down for a bit, hand on his chin until the other soldier tapped him on the shoulder. "Hallucinations? I see them too... Name's Dimir" he sat down next to him, offering Stronvich a cigarette as he pulled a bullet out and started to fiddle with it.

"What are you doing?" Stronvich asked the soldier as he pried at his ammunition. "Trying to get the powder out. You can use it with the primer to start a fire for the cig." Stronvich stopped him before pulling out a small box of matches. "Here, I picked this up off a German from no-man's land." The soldier thanked him and lit both sticks before taking a drag of the cigarette. "So how long do you think we can actually keep this up? We haven't received new ammunition unless you count the new wave of soldiers."

Stronvich blew a ring of smoke, or at least tried to. It came out looking more like an egg than a circle. "Well we were told we each got a few stripper clips and that everything else would be here... we did bring some corn though." But cans of vegetables would be all but useless against the advancing German empire.

"They could have at least given us enough bullets for ourselves..." The other soldier chuckled politely at the joke. However, the amount of soldiers who would use bullets or even bayonets on themself instead of facing the German army was staggering. But the fear of being captured was enough to push men to insanity.

Hours passed, the two looking into the dark land between them and the German empire. The moon-light, was long blocked out by smoke from fires, artillery, or bullets. Quiet murmmering passed between the two as the night wore on. Only a few hours till morning...

Boots squelching through the thick mud brought the attention of Stronvich and Dimir as three men came to the station. "Privyet!" The one at the front greeted them. His beard doing nothing to hide the large smile he wore. "Morning," Dimir muttered back, taking another drag of his cigarette. The new watchmen took out their own sticks, Stronvich was quick to oblige, using his breath to power the flame and light their tobacco.

The large man with the beard took a long drag, holding it for a moment before releasing it into a nice ring that floated a few feet before disappearing into the smog that lingered around them. "Many thanks my friend!" he gave Stronvich a hearty slap on the back, nearly making the boy drop his smoke as he scrambled to balance on his seat. The others laughed as Stronvich and Dimir prepared to go back to camp.