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soggythecereal · 1 month ago

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| Longing Home |

Disclaimer

This is a snippet of the novella I am writing, which I have cut down to the first “chapter” of sorts (The story I have planned would take a few months, and span across about eighty pages). I apologize if the ending feels abrupt or unnecessarily cruel, as it was not intended to end there.

This first section of Longing Home is the darkest, showing the horrific reality of trench warfare. The rest of the story is intended to take place outside of the trenches, and in the French countryside.

This story was not made to encourage war or violence, rather it was made to depict the first world war in a realistic, unromanticized manner respectful to the lives lost from it. It is not meant to be an allegory or satire of either side, as both suffered mass casualties and both had near no justification for the generation of young lives this war destroyed.

The story of Thomas Cassidy is fictional, but the forty million lives ruthlessly ended by this war were not.

1915

Your country needs you!

Tommy looked at the poster he held, reading that sentence over and over again. He stared at the artwork in it, depicting a handsome, starry-eyed soldier smiling back as he walked off, presumably to fight for his country.

He sat in the back of a carriage, packed in with other soldiers. Most were young men, just like him. The wheels of the carriage squeaked and squealed, creating tracks in the muddy path carved into the French countryside. The carriage bumped and shifted around as it rode on the uneven road.

Tommy folded the poster he held, tucking it into the breast pocket of his freshly ironed soldier uniform. He looked up and out at the French coastline he had arrived from, near faded into the horizon.

He had never been to France before. He always wondered what it was like when he was a child. His father sometimes took him on seaside walks, along the English Channel. Tommy always ended up sitting down in the sand, looking across the deep blue waters with wide eyes full of curiosity.

Looked around at the soldiers around him. They looked tired and weary, bored of the ride already. Few others like himself looked around, excited at the idea of being in France for the first time. One at the edge of the open carriage smoked a cigarette, sure to blow the smoke away from the others’ direction.

Tommy took a deep breath, inhaling the crisp seaside air as he looked out at the countryside again.

Tommy sat in the rotted cot he had to call a bed, one of the many that lined the walls of the sleeping quarters. He sat upright in his bed, wearing his filthy uniform that had seen its fair share of use. He sat and stared at the water falling from the ceiling, slowly dripping down onto the floorboards. It seeped through the cracks and into the mud below the crude plank flooring, making the floorboards sink slightly when a step was taken.

It was four months since he had seen any green beyond his dented helmet. All he could see on the surface was miles upon miles of trenches, barbed wires and mud. It had been an especially boring and grueling experience, being stuck in the filthy trenches for nearly half a year, the only entertainment being from faded decks of cards or the occasional crack of sniper gunshot or the rumble of artillery from above.

It frightened him at first, causing him to duck down and seize up, awaiting the cries of an attack from his fellow soldiers. But it never came.

His skin felt taut against his body from hunger. It had been weeks since his group had gotten another delivery of food. It always seemed to arrive randomly, despite it being intended to arrive once every 12th.

Tommy initially hated the canned slop he was forced to eat, but soon he was so starved he couldn’t care less what food he was given. He had even considered the rats in the trenches as a potential source of food at one point, during some especially desperate times.

Tommy heard the sound of dice clattering and weary cheers come from the cafeteria, down the hall from the living quarters. The other soldiers spent their time gambling cigarettes and trinkets in games of dice and cards. Tommy never learned any card games, though he never had interest in them. None of the soldiers liked him much, anyway.

A loud boom echoed from the surface above, shaking the lanterns and dust. The rhythmic artillery pounded on the trenches, ridding most people of a chance at sleep. After a few men died in the early months of the war from the blasts, it was common practice for soldiers to stay in the dugouts until they were forced to leave, usually by the officers.

Sometimes, Tommy liked to imagine what the artillery machine firing all the explosions looked like. He’d never had the chance to see one before, only the carnage it created. He imagined it was like a massive cannon, larger than any buildings he’d seen, hurdling giant balls of explosive steel across the country. The thoughts scared him a little, but made him ever more curious of what they actually looked like.

Another boom echoed through the dugout, shaking the lantern hung from the ceiling again. Tommy looked up at the ceiling. That was odd. The time between artillery was usually longer. The noises of gambling outside ceased as the other men noticed the oddity too. Tommy curiously stared up at the ceiling, almost expecting the answer of his question to be told to him by the filthy rafters.

Another boom came. And then another. And another. It felt like the whole world was being shaken like a baby’s toy. Tommy held onto the bed’s metal frame as an officer shouted at the men in the cafeteria.

“Get up, boys! We’ve got a whole lot of ‘em coming!”

The soldiers ran through the halls and past the living quarters’s doorway, toward the armory. Tommy hurriedly grabbed his helmet, and stuck it on his head as he dashed out the doorway.

Dust and grime fell from the rafters, creating clouds in the tight corridors. Tommy coughed a little as he ran towards the armory, just his comrades piled out of it with newfound weaponry. He pushed and shoved past them, trying to get a rifle of his own before he went to the surface.

The racks of rifles were near empty, however a few were left as their numbers dwindled from a few soldiers perishing from marksman gunfire and artillery blasts. Tommy hurriedly grabbed one of the rifles, tipped with a sharp bayonet, and cocked the bolt back. An unfired cartridge jumped out and bounced onto the floor. He inspected the chamber. It was loaded. He cocked the bolt forward, and ran out to the dugout’s exit, the sounds of booming and shouting getting close by the second.

Before he even reached the surface, it had already reeked of smoke and fresh mud. Incessant cracks of gunfire and shouting and explosions rang in his ears, near deafening him. Mud splattered left and right, raining down onto his helmet as he ran through the trenches. The sky was gray. A cold hand yanked Tommy by the collar, sending him crashing into the muddy wall. He shouted in surprise, nearly firing his rifle by accident as his sprint was slowed to a screeching halt.

“Get your ass up here, Cassidy! We’ve got the Hun headed this way!”

Tommy scrambled to get to the top of the firebay. The distant battle cry of Germans roared from dead ahead, as he saw hundreds of soldiers charging towards him. His eyes widened in horror. He shakily pulled his rifle up, setting the foregrip onto the sandbags. He peered through the iron sights, and took a deep breath.

His exhale was cut off by artillery exploding about ten meters in front of him, splattering more mud on his wide-brimmed helmet.

“Fire!”

Cracks of gunfire from the British trenches Tommy was in caused his ears to painfully ring. He quickly lined up an enemy soldier’s head with his front sight, and fired.

The rifle kicked back, shoving into his shoulder, and the soldier he fired at seemed to instantly crumple to the ground. Tommy shakily exhaled. He cocked the bolt back, then forward, and peered through his sights again. He fired another shot. Then cocked the bolt. Then fired again. The process repeated over and over, and his fellow soldiers did the same. Another blast of artillery blew mud onto Tommy’s face and clothing. This went on for what felt like hours. Fire, reload. Fire, reload. Fire, reload. The horde of Germans didn’t seem to cease, no matter how many were shot.

A boom of gunfire came outside of the trench, closer than the rest. Tommy flinched down in surprise. The man that pulled Tommy onto the firebay fell back, groaning in agony. He dropped his rifle, groaning in pain as he clutched his shoulder.

“God dammit! I’m shot! I’m shot!” He cried out in pain, curling into a ball in the mud.

Tommy dropped his rifle, clutching onto his helmet as he dropped down and ran up to the man. A dark pool came from the man’s shoulder as he groaned and cried. Tommy frantically looked around.

“He’s hurt! Someone get help!”

The man suddenly screamed in agony, and Tommy’s hand was covered in something warm. He snapped his head back to the man, only to see him curled into a ball. He clutched his stomach and screamed.

Another gunshot boomed, as something whizzed by Tommy’s ear. He looked up ahead where it came from, a meter or two in front of him.

A German soldier cussed, frantically yanking the stiffened bolt on his rifle. He looked at Tommy with wide eyes, before moving back and still trying to get the bolt to unjam.

Tommy gasped, slipping in the wet mud as he crawled for his rifle. He clawed it with one hand, sliding it across the mud and into both arms as he fired at the enemy soldier just as he aimed back at him.

Two cracks of gunfire rang out at the same time. The soldier dropped, his rifle slipping out of his hands and onto the ground. Tommy scrambled to his feet, cocking his rifle again. He walked up to the German, aiming his rifle at him.

The soldier remained motionless, fearfully looking up at the sky. A small hole in the soldier’s face bubbled out blood, flowing down his face and into the mud.

Tommy lowered the sights, looking at the German’s face in horror. The German’s eyes were wide and glassy, stuck in a constant gaze of fearful terror.

“Oh god.”

Tommy dropped his rifle, moving back as he fearfully fixed his eyes on the corpse.

“Oh my god.”

He heard the groans of the injured ally again, and Tommy teared his gaze off the corpse and towards him. The soldier had partially propped himself up on the trench wall, taking deep breaths as he gritted his teeth and painfully looked into the sky. Tommy ran over to him again. He panicked, fiddling around with his pockets as he kept glancing at the soldier.

“Y-You’ll be alright. Just take some deep breaths,”

The wounded soldier nodded, not looking at Tommy. He swallowed thickly.

“Thomas, get back up on the firebay! I’ve got him!”

Tommy looked up, seeing a medic running through the trenches up ahead, towards the wounded soldier. He shouted at Tommy.

Tommy looked up at the medic as he ran up to the wounded soldier, shoving Tommy aside and pulling out supplies.

“I can help! I-”

The medic glanced at Tommy.

“The officers are going to skin you if you don’t get back up there! Hurry up!”

Tommy shrank a little. He picked up his rifle, before clambering back onto the firebay. He looked at the medic again, who began dragging the wounded soldier away through the trenches. Tommy looked back at the fight ahead. More Germans kept charging, though it was fewer than before. Tommy wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and steadied his sights again.

It had been roughly four hours since the attack on the British trench. Many were wounded, but few had been killed. Tommy sat in the corner of the mess hall, shaking like a leaf. He gnawed on his hardtack, staring into space. Whenever he blinked, he saw the wide, glassy eyes of the dead German soldier, staring up into the sky. Tommy took deep breaths, trying to calm down. A distant boom of artillery echoed overhead, shaking dust from the rafters.

Tommy dropped his hardtack onto the floor, hiding his face under his helmet as he curled into a ball. A few other soldiers had a similar reaction to Tommy, ducking under tables or flinching greatly. They awaited the worst, but nothing came.

An officer, referred to only by his rank and his last name, “Adams”, walked into the mess hall, carrying a sack over his shoulder. He was older than all of Tommy’s fellow soldiers, having a thick black mustache on his unsmiling lip. He slung the sack over his shoulder and onto an empty table, and looked at the soldiers. Tommy flinched and yelped a bit at the bag’s noisy landing, but settled as he peered out from under his helmet, picking up his hardtack off the floor.

“Gather around, ladies! We’ve got a new batch of mail from king and country!”

Most soldiers gathered around, shoving each other to try and get closer to the mailbag. Tommy stayed where he was, looking at the ground. Officer Adams shouted.

“Silence! Await your turn, or I’ll send these straight back!”

The soldiers stopped shoving each other, but remained huddled around the bag. Adams reached into the bag, and pulled out a thick wad of letters. He cleared his throat, and began reading them out.

“John Thatcher!”

A soldier raised his hand, and Adams handed him the letter. He read the next one out.

“Max Edison!”

Another soldier raised his hand, and Adams handed him the letter. As Adams called out the letters, Tommy stared at the ground with a saddened expression. He looked at his hardtack again, and started gnawing on it again.

“Thomas Cassidy!”

Tommy looked up. There was silence. He looked at Officer Adams, who looked around. Besides the creak of floorboards, the room remained silent for several moments. Adams called out again.

“Thomas Cassidy!”

Another moment of silence went by. One of the soldiers piped up.

“He might’ve been wounded, officer. He’s probably in the medical bay.”

“Nonsense! I know who was and wasn’t shot!”

Officer Adams shouted louder, waving the letter.

“Thomas Cassidy! Come retrieve your letter at once!”

Tommy hesitantly got up, walking over to the thinned crowd of soldiers around Officer Adams.

“That’s me, sir,”

“Well, come get this letter already! You’ve wasted enough of my time.”

Tommy took the letter. He walked back to his spot, reading the envelope.

To be delivered to Thomas Cassidy. From the Cassidy Residence.

Tommy stopped. His eyes widened, and his heart dropped into his shoes. He swallowed thickly and looked back to Officer Adams, who had gone back to calling out the names on the letters. He looked back at the letter. He kept looking at it as he walked over to his spot and sat back down.

Over and over, Tommy read the words on the envelope. He stared at it, as if he wasn’t sure what to do with it. It almost frightened him. Not as much as the battle he was in before, but it was a silent kind of fright. He kept looking at it, focusing his full attention on it and nothing else. It wasn’t until Officer Adams roared at the top of his lungs that Tommy looked up.

“Silence! Now, I have received orders from higher authorities that we will strike the German trenches at sundown! We must take them while they’re wounded!”

The soldiers groaned.

“That’s load o’ bloody hogwash! We’ve got our own to tend to!”

“I am not of power nor patience to argue on such matters! We strike tonight evening, no banter about it!”

Officer Adams walked out. The soldiers grumbled with one another, going back to eating their rations.

Tommy made a sort of sigh of shock at the news. He looked back at the envelope, staring at it a moment longer. He folded it up and tucked it into his breast pocket, put away with the poster he came to the frontlines with. He went back to gnawing on his hardtack, miserably staring at a spot on the floor.

Tommy laid in his cot, staring at the bottom of the top bunk. His heart hammered in his chest, and he breathed heavily. The eyes of the German soldier were still burned into his mind, and he heard the distant groans and screams of the trenches whenever he lost too much concentration.

He tried to regulate his breathing, taking slow, labored breaths. He swallowed, and closed his eyes. After a few minutes, he finally calmed enough for his breathing to return to normal.

He sat up, pulling the envelope out of his breast pocket. He unfolded it, and stared at it. His mind went blank as he looked at it. Over and over, he read the words written on it.

To be delivered to Thomas Cassidy. From the Cassidy Residence.

Tommy almost knew what was in it, but seemed beyond afraid to open it. His fingers traced onto where the envelope was sealed, as he contemplated opening it.

Officer Adams marched in, calling out to the soldiers in the bunks.

“Come on! Up and out men, we’ve got an offensive scheduled in thirty minutes!”

A few soldiers mumbled, but most got out of their bunks and marched out the door. Tommy sat, looking at the doorway. Officer Adams marched over, grabbing Tommy by the ear and pulling him out of his bunk.

“Hurry up Thomas, you filthy waste of space! I will not tolerate any lack of participation in my trench!” Officer Adams shoved Tommy out into the hallway. He drew his revolver out from the holster across his chest, and quickly paced down the hall without so much as a glance back at Tommy.

“Come on! I haven’t got all evening to watch after you like a child!”

“Yes, sir,”

Tommy hastily tucked the envelope back into his pocket, and jogged to the armory. A smattering of fellow soldiers were still in the armory, reloading their rifles. Tommy picked up one of the rifles still left on the rack, and pulled the bolt back. An unused cartridge popped out, bouncing on the floorboards. The rifle was completely emptied.

Tommy pulled a stripper clip filled with bullets from the pouch on his person, and guided the bullets into the rifle’s magazine. He flicked the empty metal clip off of the rifle, letting it fall onto the floor, and pulled out another from his ammunition pouch, repeating the process.

He cocked the bolt back forward, causing the remaining clip to snap off with a sharp ping, then paced out.

Most of the other soldiers had already gone out to the trenches to await the time to attack, but others were still on their way. One of them looked at Tommy.

“How long’ve you been here?”

Tommy raised his head and looked at the soldier.

“Ah, a couple months,”

“I figured you’d be a little new,”

The soldier smiled, and moved his rifle to one hand as he held the other out to Tommy.

“Gale Reginald.”

Tommy looked at the soldier for a moment, before eagerly shaking his hand.

“Tommy Cassidy.”

“Where you from? You don’t sound all that British,”

“Wales. My pop was Welsh, and we moved to England a couple years after he had me.”

Tommy looked up at the soldier.

“You have an accent too, you know.”

Gale chuckled.

“I’m from Scotland.”

Tommy narrowed his eyes.

“Why’re you asking me if I’m a Brit or not if you’re not one, either?”

“It’s just there’s not much Scots or Welsh in these trenches. I heard most of the non-Brit soldiers in the empire were placed closer to the coast. Not much here,”

Gale chuckled.

“Besides you and me, I suppose.”

The two walked out from the dugout. The sun was near set in the west, shining the last of its rays onto the backs of Tommy and Gale. The sky was filled with gray smoke as usual, but it was a faint orange as the sun set.

Soldiers lined the trench walls, awaiting orders. They all held bayoneted rifles, warily looking up at the top of the trench. Officer Adams stood holding his revolver up at the sky idly as he looked at a golden pocket watch.

“Cassidy and Reginald, I should’ve known that you two homophiles would group together.”

Officer Adams pointed at a slim opening between two soldiers.

“Cassidy! Step forth there!”

As Tommy shuffled over to the spot, Gale spoke up.

“What about me, officer?”

Officer Adams looked up at him. “I couldn’t give a flying damn! We’ve got forty seconds before we go over, and I shan't waste them on you!”

Gale frowned. He spat at Officer Adams’s feet, and hurried further down the trench. The distant booms of artillery began to echo out far ahead in no man’s land, and Tommy shivered.

“Fifteen seconds!”

A soldier beside him quickly cocked his rifle, breathing heavily. More artillery blasts echoed out.

“Ten seconds!”

Tommy tried to regulate his breathing, clutching tightly onto his rifle.

The sound of the high-pitched scream of a whistle pierced the air.

“Onward!”

In an instant, every able man in the trench piled over each other and into the muddy above-ground. Cracks of gunfire roared as loud as the soldier’s battle cries as they charged forth.

Tommy ran through the crater-ridden battlefield, the only things poking above the carnage being long-dead trees and charging soldiers. He blindly fired a shot out in front of him out of fear, hoping it struck something.

Explosions of artillery rained mud down like rain. The endless mechanical roaring of machine guns sounded out as Tommy’s fellow soldiers dropped to the ground as if they were dolls. Tommy panicked, sliding to a halt. More soldiers pushed past him, running into the line of gunfire and dropping near instantly. The ones still alive writhed and shouted painfully in the mud. Tommy stepped back, frantically looking for cover.

“Forward! For king and country!”

Officer Adams shouted from behind. He waved a sword as he ran behind the wave of soldiers, almost using them as a human wall.

When soldiers began realizing the danger of the machine gun fire, they started sliding down into a nearby crater. Tommy did the same, rolling into the filthy water as he landed at the bottom.

The shouting and gunfire persisted, only broken by the deafening sound of artillery exploding nearby. The sun had fallen into the horizon, invisible even in the flat mud lands, changing the sky to a dark purple. Soldiers poked their heads out from the crater, trying to provide enough suppressive fire to push onwards.

Tommy staggered to his feet, picking up his rifle up and out from the pool of water he was in.

A bloodcurdling scream from one of the soldiers shook Tommy to the core. He snapped his head to one of the men providing suppressive fire, who screamed in pain as he fell back and rolled into the water. Tommy ran over to him, trying to get him out of the filthy water, which had started turning crimson.

One of the soldier’s arms had been ripped off to the elbow, spilling out blood. The white of bone shone through the shredded tendons, reddened by the blood continuously poured onto it. Tommy gasped, accidentally dropping the soldier into the water as he staggered back in horror. The soldier kept screaming, clawing at the remaining stump of what was once his arm.

Tommy gagged and doubled over, trying not to empty his stomach of his recent meal. He fell onto his knees, and vomited out into the mud.

Officer Adams had finally slid into the crater, now shouting more orders at the soldiers that had arrived before him.

“I said move!” “This is suicide! We-”

Officer Adams fired his revolver up into the air.

“No more excuses! Up and over, come on!”

Officer Adams forced Tommy into laying onto his side, he looked down at him.

“Get up!”

Tommy coughed, shakily rising to his feet. Satisfied, Officer Adams spun, and holstered his revolver. He pulled out his whistle, and blew as he raised his sword in the air.

“Forward!”

The soldiers screamed out of stress and horror as they climbed up the crater walls, charging forth with Officer Adams close behind them. They trampled the dead and wounded that had started collecting in the crater, bodies shot and amputated of fellow soldiers lining the mud and water despite the short amount of time had passed.

Tommy curled up in the mud, holding his rifle against his chest. He gagged again, nearly vomiting again. He kept blabbering in a frantic and whispered tone, unable to make out coherent words as he sobbed in the mud.

A pair of hands grabbed Tommy from behind, dragging him up. He screamed, flailing his limbs! “No, no, no! Please, I-”

“Tommy! It’s me!”

Gale turned Tommy to face him once he pulled him up to his feet. They looked into each other’s eyes.

“We can make it through this, okay?”

Tommy was still hyperventilating, but he nodded. Gale looked down at the ground, at Tommy’s helmet. He picked it up, putting it on Tommy’s head. Tommy picked up his rifle, as Gale walked up to the side of the crater.

“Come on. We can do this.”

Gale went down into a prone position, clutching his rifle as he went up the side, nearing the top. Tommy quickly caught up, laying next to him with his rifle, both him and his weapon now filthy and covered in mud. Gale took a deep breath.

“One, two, three!”

The two went up above ground, running across no man’s land. The land looked as if it was catching fire, as many of the dead trees before caught ablaze, providing light in the dark of night. What looked to be hundreds of British soldiers were strewn in the mud, their uniforms bloody and their bodies unmoving, collecting in near piles tangled together by limbs and barbed wire.

“Oh, god. O-Oh, god-“

“Tommy, we’ll be okay! Just focus! We need to regroup with the others!”

Machine gun fire still persisted, along with the incessant cracks of gunfire and endless booms of artillery blasts. Tommy and Gale kept running, trudging through the mud that buried hundreds of bodies. Mud and water splashed up as the bullets of a machine gun approached them.

“Get down!”

Gale jumped down behind a fallen tree. Tommy snapped his head over, doing the same just as a bullet whizzed past his ear. The two crouched behind the tree, as countless bullets smashed into the other side of its trunk. Gale was crouched down, moving slowly towards a crater located at the tree's exposed roots. Tommy followed close behind him. The gunfire persisted, loudly ripping apart the tree with sheer power.

“Gale?”

“What?”

“We’re going to die, aren’t we?”

“No, don’t say that! We’re going to get through this!”

“Okay.”

The two climbed down into the crater.

The crater was deeper than it looked. The two fell down, splashing into the knee-high water several meters below.

Tommy sat up immediately, gasping for air. He felt for his rifle, pulling it out from the water. He then looked for Gale, who was already standing up next to him. Gale was fiddling with his own rifle, trying to work the bolt through the filth that covered it. He looked up at Tommy, then at the crater they were in.

“Goddamn it, this place’s deeper than it looks,”

“Yeah,”

Tommy looked around as he got up, trying to find a way out as well.

The crater was large, its sides looking steep and untraversable. A rotted German soldier laid nearby, his legs in the water as his upper body rested on the drier land. Tommy whimpered, moving away from it.

“Up there!”

Tommy looked over at Gale, following his gaze up to a fallen tree, slanted slightly into the crater. It looked too high for a man to climb up there alone.

Gale tossed his rifle into the non-submerged mud, and walked just under the tree’s roots. He turned to Tommy, spread his legs to shoulder length, and cupped his hands together.

“Give me your foot, Tom.”

“What?”

“I’ll boost you up, aye?”

Tommy made a sort of exasperated chuckle.

“Aye.”

Tommy slung his rifle over his shoulder, and walked up to Gale. He put his boot in Gale’s hands, and held onto his shoulders for stability. Gale hoisted his leg up, giving Tommy just barely enough time to grab onto the trunk’s roots. He clawed his way up the roots, resting on the smooth part of the trunk. He turned around, and leaned down over the roots, holding his hand out for Gale. Gale smiled, jumping up and grabbing Tommy’s hand.

“I knew you weren’t the cowardly type,” He grunted.

“Okay.” Tommy groaned as he pulled Gale up with both hands.

Once the two were both on the trunk of the tree, Tommy turned and started crawling to the other end.

“You’re heavier than you look.” Gale chuckled.

“Shut up.”

Tommy put his boots on solid ground, pulling his rifle out as he fell into a prone position. Gunfire roared, tearing apart a group of British soldiers about thirty meters ahead. Artillery shook the ground every few seconds. Moans and screams of fear and agony echoed across the battlefield. Mountains of fallen men piled high, ripped to shreds by explosives and bullets. Tommy swallowed back nausea as he kept crawling. The distant sound of Officer Adams screaming orders persisted, being near as loud as the gunfire he tried to shout over. Hundreds of soldiers kept charging across the battlefield, only stopping when their bodies were torn apart by the endless number of bullets crowding the nighttime air. It was hell on Earth.

“Oh god…”

“We need to get that machine gun down, then we’ll make it through!” Gale stopped, pulling a pair of binoculars out and peering over a mound of mud. He looked over at Tommy, and motioned for him to come closer.

“Aim your rifle.”

“What?”

“Aim your rifle, I’ll spot you. Mine’s jammed.”

Tommy took a deep breath, setting the foregrip of his rifle on the mud as he aligned the back and front sights together.

“Okay.”

“Ah, turn a little to the right!”

Tommy moved slowly, doing as Gale instructed. There was a small area dug out in the fire bay, having several enemy soldiers operating a machine gun. One fired, while one fed the bullets into the gun, and another peered out, almost as a spotter of sorts, just like what Gale was doing.

“Now, fire!”

Tommy fired a shot. It didn’t hit the crew, though it struck a nearby soldier behind them, causing him to cry out in pain as he fell back. Tommy cocked his rifle, taking a deep breath.

“Okay, little up, then left.”

Tommy did so, and fired again. The bullet caused the one feeding bullets to duck down, who then shouted something. The machine gun began slowly turning to fire at Tommy and Gale, splattering mud as the bullets kept firing across the battlefield. Tommy gasped, and cocked his rifle again.

“Shit.”

“Just keep firing, you’re on target!”

Tommy fired again. Then again. The crew remained unharmed, though flinching whenever he fired a shot.

“Come on,” He pleaded, firing again. The bullet missed. He cocked the rifle again, his breathing becoming fast and panicked.

“Come on!” He fired again nearly blindly, cocking his rifle immediately afterwards,

The bullet struck the machine gunner, causing him to cry and stagger back. The crew looked down at their wounded comrade, glancing at Tommy before moving down from the machine gunning bay. Gale cheered, patting Tommy’s shoulder.

“Goddamn! Nice skills, Tom!”

Tommy kept his eyes focused on his sights, but smiled a bit.

“Thanks, I-”

A sudden blast of sound and force stunned Tommy. He flew back, rolling a few meters before he laid in the mud, curling up as mud showered him. A sharp ringing and warm, liquidy sensation came from one of his ears, the one closest to Gale.

Gale.

Tommy looked around. He picked up his rifle from the nearby mud, but ignored finding his helmet to focus on his main priority. As he crawled, a trail of blood dripped from his ear and into the mud. He tried to ignore that, too.

“Gale?” He called out.

Beyond the ringing and sounds of horrific war, no sound came.

“Gale?” He yelled louder.

Tommy’s hand came in contact with something warmer and stickier than mud. He raised his hand to his face to see what he had touched.

It was blood.

Not the regular spills of blood in the mud, but a puddle. A large puddle of blood. Tommy followed the trail the puddle seemed to give. What he saw at the end of it made his eyes widen, and the little food left in his stomach curdle.

Gale.

“Oh my god.”

Tommy dropped his rifle, going from crawling to nearly standing as he held Gale by the shoulders.

“Gale?”

Everything below his navel was blown off, allowing his internal organs to spill and bleed freely on the ground. Gale’s left arm was ripped to the elbow. The visible skin he had left was white as a bedsheet, and his eyes were wide and glassy.

Tommy sobbed. He tried to say something, but no coherent words came out. He gagged violently, moving away from Gale for a moment. Not even a second later, he moved back up to Gale, shaking him.

“Gale? Gale?”

Gale said nothing. Tommy hugged the remains of his comrade tightly, sobbing violently.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”

His words fell apart as he cried harder and harder, turning into panicked, whispered, babbling. He held Gale for what felt like hours, as the sounds of war seemed almost silent in the world Tommy was in.

A bullet slammed into the mud beside Tommy. He cried out, letting go of Gale and crawling backwards. He shakily grabbed his rifle, then turned. He ran into the night, sobbing as he held his rifle as tight as he held Gale’s corpse.

“I can’t! I’m sorry! I can’t!”

Step after step, he ran blindly across the mud, staggering over bodies and quickly yanking himself free from barbed wire strewn across the battlefield. No matter how hard he inhaled, it felt as if he never had enough air. He kept running and running, his tears near blinding him as he staggered through the carnage. A bullet whizzed by his good ear, bringing him back into the moment and causing Tommy to double over. He slipped, and fell down into an unseen pit before him. Before he could make a sound, he crashed back into the mud, and rolled down what was the steep slope of a presumed crater, trying to claw himself back into stability as he rolled. Just as he had twice before, he fell down into the water at the bottom.

Tommy shakily got up onto his feet, picking up his rifle as he did so. He heard a familiar voice a few meters ahead, one that made him shudder.

“Move, I said!”

Officer Adams fired his revolver into the air again. He angrily blew his whistle at the few unmoving soldiers lining the edge of the crater. A soldier got up, only to fall back into the crater, motionless and silenced by death. Blood poured from his head. Adams blew his whistle again, then jabbed one of his fingers out at the men.

“Goddamn you, move forward!”

One of the soldiers, who wore glasses with one of the lens cracked, tried to move down into the crater and away from the gunfire.

“We can’t!”

Adams fired a shot near the soldier’s feet, forcing him back up into the line of fire at the crater’s edge.

“Yes you can! By god, you men will march forth!”

Tommy seethed through snot and tears. He held the grip of his rifle with both hands, moving towards Adams. Officer Adams fired his revolver into the air again. He screamed above the gunfire.

“We will take this line! We will not lose these lands to the Hun! We will-”

Tommy screamed in anger, charging across the crater bottom towards Adams. Adams turned his head to Tommy, lowering his revolver slightly.

“Cassidy! What-”

The bayonet of Tommy’s rifle surged into Adams’s chest. Adams dropped his revolver, looking at Tommy in horror. His lip motioned as if he were saying words, but only blood poured out. Tommy kicked Adams’s heavy frame back off of the bayonet, letting him crumple in the mud.

Adams gurgled and gasped, writhing on the ground in his blood. Tommy breathed through his clenched jaw in anger a few moments longer as he watched Adams die, before he broke back into sobbing again. He looked up.

The soldiers looked back at him and Adams in shock, moving slowly down into the crater.

“Holy shit. He’s dead.” One of them muttered, looking at Adams.

“He’s dead!”

Tommy panicked. He looked around like a caged animal, breathing faster and harder again. With no other choice in his mind, he turned and ran. He climbed up the crater, trying to evade everything. Everything that had happened. Everything that will happen. Everything that brought him there, to this hell he was trapped in.

A bullet came from the crater he had left, causing him to momentarily lose his balance as he ran. Fellow British soldiers shouted at him, but their shouts and orders fell on deafened ears. Tommy kept running, sobbing as he aimlessly traversed no man’s land, a world lit only by flames and gunfire.

#ww1 #writing #short story #original story #fiction #wip #ill likely only post this part of the novella to the public.

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