The rain was the worst. Almost every other day, the heavens would open and a monsoon would be dumped upon us in vile torrents. We were walking ankle deep in cold, murky water, our boots disappearing into the mud with every step. On so many nights, the sky would light up with the backdrop of explosions and the ground would shake both beneath and around us.
Of course, it wasn't always so dreadful, sometimes even there'd be moments when things seemed to be going reasonably well. During crossfires, I'd sit amongst the other boys and together we'd talk, exchanging stories and jokes; anything to make the prospect of the following day seem lighter. Amid the many men, and boys, I had grown to share everything with, there were four with whom I had grown particularly close. One of them, Eric Fort, was currently sat opposite me, tapping his fingers against his knee and whistling a vague sort of tune. Running a large hand through his messed up black hair in a shower of raindrops, he let out a long sigh.
"What are we doing here?" He muttered, "This is stupid. Sat out here in Belgium, freezing to death and knee deep in mud." I nodded silently, holding the last piece of cheese I had in my palm. It had been several days since I had last eaten, the rations having not appeared over the course of the past week. My stomach still felt empty, but it was nice to have something at least between the physical exertion of battling against both the enemy and the elements.
"Four years." I sighed, resting my head in my hands and barely stifling a yawn. The sandbags that made up the walls of the trench were slipping away into the mud behind my back, washing away in the heavy rain that filled the air around us, "all for what? A load of old men sat around a table with no idea what's even happening out here."
"They should try coming out here at some point." Eric scowled, "And I'll shove their repetitive tactics where even the Kaiser can't find them." He looked up from the floor and caught my eye, a wide grin on his pale face, "Sorry Cec." I shrugged in response, still laughing quietly to myself. Eric was the oldest of the small group of fellow soldiers I had grown particularly close to, but having just turned 28, he was still a lot younger than many others we passed by in the trenches. With a cheeky sense of humour and a partially worrying habit of always speaking his mind, it was Eric that mainly kept the trenches alive and things were never dull as long as he remained around us. Unlike so many others, he had seemed to retain his ability to laugh and it was extremely unusual to see him without a smile of some form.
"As far as I'm concerned," I grinned back at him, "If only that old geezer had remembered to wear his fancy bulletproof jacket they made for him, we wouldn't be in this mess. Or, if maybe the Generals would let us try something different for a change. We've done nothing new in all the time I've been here. Throw out a couple of bombs then go on a suicide run over a bog to try and kill some other poor, scared sods who've been through as much as we have. It's sickening."
Briefly, silence hung in the air, a scarily common sound that wasn't so much the form of no sound, but rather one of a whole lot of people staying quiet. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched an enormous rat scuttle across the boards just a few metres away from where I sat propped up against the sandbag wall with a rifle clutched in my hand. Wincing, I turned away from the large, snuffling rodent, momentarily glad I had already eaten my final chunk of cheese. Not that these revolting creatures ever had much of dairy in their diet, most tended to survive on rotting human flesh alone; ours or Fritz, dead or alive, they didn't care and happily grew to the size of pampered cats off of it.
Until, from far off, I felt a low vibration run down my spine. At first, I dismissed it for nothing more than a louse inside of my uniform (a sensation that was hardly unusual), but then it came again and I saw Eric sit up straighter, grabbing his gun from beside him.
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5 Months on the Western Front
Short StoryCecil Fredricks sat between his friends, struggling to stay awake as the aging night enveloped him. All around them, shells fall from the sky, destroying everything and leaving a mess of the battlefield they sit on. Thinking back to his own room, an...