MicroHorror

Paschendale, Belgium
September 1917

My feet can hardly move in this mud. Thick puddles of filth litter the trench, and my boots sink with every step. The stench of human waste is unbearable but I have to keep moving. We’ve been called down to Launch Point again. That’s the area at the western end of my trench where all the sorties commence. This will be the fifth time this week and it’s only Wednesday. Luckily for us the other times have been called off. But I don’t think our luck will hold today. Eight out of the ten platoons in this trench have already been called today. Must be something big to leave our position pretty much undefended.

As I lead through the mire we walk past lines of men steadied on ladders. Peering over the top of the trench, they wait. Poised for the moment when they must charge over the top and into a hail of German bullets. I can hear sobbing and the occasional cough floating on the dawn air, but no one is speaking. Must be a few first-timers in this lot. God help them. God help us all.

We reach the end of the trench and enter a wider area that houses a large wooden bunker. Raised planks reach out from the mud and lead up to the entrance. This is the officers’ mess and also the end of Launch Point. We go no further west from here. North and over the top is the only way now.

I line my men up, six to a ladder, before climbing the final one myself. This time it’s for real. They never call it off once we are all set and ready.

Not long now. I place my whistle between my lips and check my watch. Two minutes to go. I look toward the bunker and Corporal Henson is doing the same. I know what time we go, but I will wait for him to blow first. I look back down the trench at my men. All quiet. All focused. All scared to death.

A distant whistle sounds across no-man’s land, joined by another and then another. I turn to Corporal Henson who stares straight back, his own whistle dropping from his pursed lips. We both know what is happening. The Germans have mounted their own offensive and will cut us down where we stand if we don’t act fast. I blow long and hard, my lungs bursting with pain before a second whistle down the line takes up the call to arms.

And then we are over the top and charging down the enemy. Men are falling next to me, in front of me and behind. I push on, firing blindly as the sound of gunfire explodes around me. Then I’m down. I’m not hit but tangled in barbed wire with the corpses of three young men. In front I can see the Wehrmacht approaching. A line of spiked helmets shadowed against the mist.

Before I can rise they are on me. A German bayonet scrapes my ribcage as it pushes into my chest. The tip scraping the earth beneath me. Frantically I try to grasp my attacker, but my hands pass through him as though he wasn’t there. My men fall all around as the Germans advance. Our bullets passing right through them with seemingly no effect. I watch the blade drawn from my chest slice back down through my gut as this army of ghosts marches on unimpeded. And I know we are truly lost. Our lives, our souls, all lost. Hell has been unleashed upon us.