1917
(c)2006, Basil Sands
Oh God!
Stop the noise! Please, please, please, stop the noise!
The artillery shells had been raining down on us for what seemed like ages. My life flashed before my eyes with every crump and thud. Twice I am lifted bodily off the ground.
I can't feel my face anymore. Everything is numb. Bill's mouth is moving, he's looking at me, shouting something, but I can't hear anything.
He claps his hands over his ears and curls in a ball. He is shaking badly, sobbing and weeping like a baby.
The earth keeps rumbling around me. I am afraid this hole will cave in and I will be buried. Oh God, please don't let me be buried alive.
Looking up from my hole I see the flashes of steel shrapnel flying in every direction.
Three more huge explosions, right outside my hole, my world lifts, the ground turns like liquid for a moment. Will it hold me? Will this liquified dirt hold me up? Can the earth sustain this many blows? The entire planet must be near shattering. It will crumble into a billion tiny rocks.
Two more blasts nearby. I am blind from the concussion for a second.
It shook me so hard I think I lost my bowels.
Rubble and debris fall into my hole. Bill picks up something and starts puking. It is an arm. It's Sgt. Clarks arm, I can tell because of the watch his wife sent him.
I'm gonna die. Father in heaven, take my soul. Forgive me for everything. I am really sorry for all the bad things I did.
Bill isn't puking anymore. He's laying on his back, staring up at the sky. He looks very comfortable, very relaxed. There is a growing dark stain on his tunic.
The ground has stopped rumbling. I can hear a bird singing.
Captain Smythe leans over my hole and shouts at me. He's holding a whistle in his hand and pointing at my rifle. He seems unfazed by the death and destruction. I want to follow him, maybe he'll lead us home. Maybe he knows where Sgt. Clark is, so I can give him his watch back.
I grab my rifle but it comes apart in my hand. Bill's is whole still, I take his. He won't need it anymore. There is no colour left in his face. He is grey, already blending in with the mud on which he sleeps.
The bird sings again, it sounds like a whistle. Captain Smythe is running, pointing.
Sgt. Clark is nowhere to be found, so I follow the Captain. The Hun is waiting. He is hungry. I still can't feel my face.
1917 Part 1
Trench Coffee - 1917, Part 2
Deathly Fog - 1917, Part 3
Here They Come - 1917, part 4
Pig Men – 1917, Part 5
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Comments: 7
Very intimate portrait of war. It hurts to think it's really a type of non-fiction.
The things I write just seem to come to me. Be it poetry or the Karl story, they just appear in my mind. Either whole or in a series of bits and pieces as I go about my job. I must admit, they often appear so fast I have a serious editing issue being unable to catch the grammar errors as I put them down.
It could be the boredom of cubicle land (I am a computer technician in a small office, somewhat reminiscent of a Maytag repairman).
As far as the war pieces, since I was little, maybe six, I had always wanted to be a US Marine. I played with little green army men until I was about 10, then spent the rest of my childhood reading war stories and biographies. I joined at 19 only to break my ankles in boot camp and be sent home with permanent disabilities. Perhaps the writing is the story I wanted to live, but now can only do vicariously. Why a person, even subconciously, would want to experience war I don't know. But it seems that, at least in the depths of my mind, I have experienced it. I guess this is what happens when a child's imagination is retained in adulthood.