Soldiers

Part 1. The Big Push

As the boys gouged their way through the slop of mud, like old school dinners, they laughed to each other as David pulled a joke from his war-stained sleeve. Wilfred and William had met at the sign-up office where their clothes had been stripped with dignity and their health-checks had been taken as they signed their inky names. A death-sentence while middle-aged men in circular spectacles smiled at the heroes before them. David had arrived from up north and Smokey, so called because his dark hair had turned grey with exhaustion almost instantly, had arrived in the battalion several days after. Meanwhile Michael had tried three times to get in. He was only 16, three years younger than the desired amount.

The five boys were nothing special. They had grown up individually in the dens and caves of childhood, hiding and exploring on the rocks which transform into horses on the beach, and rivers which morph into oceans of sea monsters! There is only one thing stronger than a child's imagination and that is the thing all five boys would witness soon.

In the private soldiers' dugout nobody slept. They were not allowed to sleep. Their eyes were trained to stay open as icicles were inhaled into their parachute lungs, slitting the comfort of air. There was one small table in their dugout which was used to write letters home. More like 'lies' home, Wilfred thought, nobody wrote the truth about war. There were no words to describe it.

"Is there any dinner tonight?" Smokey asked, slipping the crumpled photograph of his children back into the pocket of his kaki jacket. The badge which was made of a penny that his daughter had given him, glinted on his jacket.

"Not sure yet" one of the other men called, "I think there might be porridge"

A chorus of moans echoed throughout the trenches as the revolting taste of the mush reverberated on their tongues. The porridge had the texture of a sock and the taste of mouldy cheese and what the boys imagined cockroach to taste like. The odour was regurgitating as it clung to your nostrils and refused to leave for days; old eggs and horse manure (Wilfred should know, he came from a farm) and a strange, clammy essence of sweat which weaved in and out of their teeth as the slop was swallowed.

Sitting around the small table, trying to squash their wind-bitten paper onto the table as the five boys whom we have mentioned, stroked the ink across the paper, creating letters for home.

"Hmm, what shall I put?" William contemplated, looking upwards as he thought, "The food here is –" he paused, "delicious! But not as good as your soup. And the beds are..."

"Non-existent!" Smokey chuckled, setting the men off in a domino of giggles.

"I'm writing mine to my brother" David sighed a sad, nostalgic sigh as if he would never see his sibling again, "he wanted to come and 'help Davie fight'" he said in a high imitated voice

"How old is he, your brother?"

"Five"

There was a short silence as the men imagined a boy of five playing hop-scotch on the battle field

"Well," William gulped, "he could stand on our shoulders to shoot the guns" they couldn't help but laugh and David took the initiative to write William's joke in the letter.

"I would love to write to my Father" Michael wished, "but he, and my two brothers, are fighting as well and I haven't a clue where they are"

"Your poor mother"

"Couldn't they send you to the same battalion?" it was suggested as that was often the case with families

"No, my Mother insisted against it because she said if the trench were to be blown apart then all four of us would be gone in a flash" he clicked his fingers for effect, "but if we're dotted about, then there's a one in four chance of survival"