As I Lay Dying

Thirteen

AN- Apologies for the delay.. If you're still reading then I think maybe it's best if you re-read at least the last chapter so you remember what's going on! Sorry.

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1916

Luke, Jimmy and Tommy are talking in low voices as make my way down the trench towards them.

"Is it true?" Luke asks as I approach.

I nod and sit down heavily. Jimmy groans and rubs his hand across his face.

"Two days before we go over the top again." I say softly. "That's if the grenades don't get us first."

We've been bombarded heavily these past four days, at a huge loss of men. From what I heard today, there's no plan to replace those we've lost before the next attack.

"I suppose because we've lost so many men to grenades, the obvious answer is to send the few of us that's left to fight them. Why not finish us all off." Jimmy mutters bitterly.

"We've got a new officer." I add, sharing the information I've just been given. "The last attack went so badly that the other fella has been moved on somewhere else."

"Who is it?" Jimmy asks slowly, obviously thinking of Pige and how bad the last attack really was.

"Don't know." I shrug, grabbing a stale biscuit from the pack they'd just been sharing. "He hasn't arrived yet, but he can't be worse than the last one."

"They're all as bad as each other." Luke spits. "More than happy to send us to our deaths while they sit there in their comfy tents and order us around like pawns on a chessboard."

Jimmy leans in and begins to talk to Luke lowly. I stare down at the small, inadequate fire before I realise Tommy is leaning towards me.

"Harry?" Unless he's talking to Jim, he always sounds nervous. "Can you help me write a letter home?"

"Of course." I smile softly.

Tommy is from an extremely poor background and can't do much more than clumsily scrape the letter T to sign his letters off.

"I just want to write to my Ma." His mouth twitches downwards.

"No problem." I smile, holding a damp sheet of paper to the tiny fire to dry it slightly.

"Can I have some?" Tommy asks gesturing towards the paper.

I hand a sheet dry sheet towards him and watch and his cold red fingers numbly grip the pen. At first his fingers are stiff and it takes a while before they shape themselves around the pen and his hand moves quicker.

In the past few weeks since he joined our odd little gang, we've discovered that our little Tommy may not be able to read or write, but he has an unusual talent for art.

He can use anything, the cheap pencils we are expected to use, even a snap of charcoal and he can create something beautiful with it. 

Luke commissioned him to do a sketch of a naked woman to hang in the dug out where we sleep. It increased Tommys popularity amongst the other soldiers no end.

Jimmy stole him a fountain pen from the officers tent and this was greeted with the usual adoration from Tommy.

I'm broken from the spell of watching Tommy draw by a loud roaring laugh from Jimmy. Tommy's mouth tilts upwards at the sound.

Jimmy, surrounded by flares and mud is laughing heartily at whatever Luke has just said and it strikes me that although Jimmy is sensitive, he is incapable of being unhappy. He could adapt to anything. It's not natural to him and whatever situation he is in; he has to find the positivity in it. Perhaps this is why we friends. We are so opposite that perhaps we need each other to counterbalance.