Over the Trenches

Chapter 1

John Watson-1914
The war was all they talked about back then, parades marching through the streets, propaganda plastered up on every wall you pass by, so I guess it's no wonder I signed up. My friend Greg joined up with me so I suppose it didn't seem as bad. I mean, why pass up the opportunity to go off to France, shoot a couple of Germans and come back a local hero. Better yet, you get paid kings shillings. It's really wasn't a difficult choice.

It took weeks of training before we were allowed out to fight though. Weeks and weeks of drills, digging into the ground, shooting targets and stabbing sandbags. Pretty boring to be honest with you, that's why we were all excited to get off to France. It wasn't a pretty sight when we got there though. Dead bodies being carted off in the hundreds, every day, and you hear all the stories of trenches being bombarded with shells, people freezing to death over in the Eastern front, even people's legs wasting away in their own trenches. Best not to listen to those.

We got set up in a trench near Ypres, although it's not really a trench, more like a hole in the ground with a river of mud passing through. That isn't even the worst of it though, that's the smell. The smell of guys who haven't washed in weeks, caked in mud and god knows what else, the smell of gunpowder in the air, the stench of that awful oil they make us rub on our feet to keep trench-foot away and another smell, one we don't talk about but we all know, the smell of death. It haunts the place.

At least it's been pretty peaceful recently, they send a couple of shells over to let us know they're there and we do the same right back. I spend most of my time when I'm not on duty in the dugout with Greg writing letters, I never tell my family what this hell hole is like, it's not like they could get me out anyway so I'll save them the stress. Greg writes to his fiancée Molly. They got engaged before he left and promised to love each other forever or something pathetic like that.

It's not like I'm against love or anything like that. I did have a girlfriend back in Britain before I left. She broke up with me when I told her I enlisted though, I never liked her much anyway. It sounds mean but I really didn't. I never have with any of my girlfriends, I'm not sure why either, I guess I haven't found 'the one' yet as Greg tells me. Screw. That. A bunch of nonsense it is, at least I don't have to worry about it for now, even if they say It'll be over by Christmas (which it won't be judging by the state of this place) I've still got a few months of rotting away in a hole before I have to deal with it.

I roll over in my bunk slamming my head against the wood.

"You alright over there?" Greg yells from the bunk above

"Do I look alright? This bloody bed is too damn small" I sit myself up and start cleaning my gun barrel.

"At least you got a bed, poor sods at the Somme are sleeping in holes in the side of the trench"

"They don't need them, they're too busy getting shot at" I mutter just loud enough for him to hear

"John! Can you stop with the bloody comments, we'll all be back by Christmas anyways, and did you hear the news?"

"Nope." I turn back to my gun, uninterested.

"We're planning a June wedding!" I can't see him but I can tell he's beaming. Clearly he thinks we'll all be back in fine shape by Christmas.

"That's if you're not dead by then" I say under my breath.

"I heard that you know" he says down at me disapprovingly. Clearly that wasn't the correct response to his blissful optimism.

I can't help it that I'm a bit rude sometimes. War really does it to you, cuts the heart out of you to the point where you're practically wishing for your own death, it's a wonder any of us stay here. If enough of us ran away I reckon they'd let us go but no ones willing to take the risk and go first. Probably because they know what'll happen if they do. Death by the firing squad. It's worse than getting killed out in the field even if it is less painful, at least in the field you die with whatever honour you've managed to hold onto. If the firing squad kill you, your whole family get to know what a rotten traitor you were and how much you deserved to die.