|
I
was lying in a curled up ball. Hugging
my knees to my chest. My teeth were chattering so loud the other lads around me
were kept awake. The mud had seeped through my clothes and now felt as if it was
permanently soaked into my bones. My whole body had been scratched raw by lice
and I hadn’t felt my feet for weeks.
No
one told me it would be like this. I had imagined ferocious battles, with horses
and heroes. Not shivering in mud for 6 months. Not watching your friends die,
not like heroes at all, but slowly rotting away. Watching your chums’ faces
being eaten away by rats.
All
the talk about ‘glorious war’ was a filthy lie. And because we had believed
it, here we were, putrefying in the trenches that people sitting in clean, tidy
offices had drawn and designed.
I
started to cry, but quietly, I didn’t want the others mocking me. The tears
warmed my face as they rolled down. It was amazing that they were still clean, I
thought, since all the rest of me was so filthy. I squeezed my eyes tight,
welcoming the forthcoming sting as a distraction from the cold and terror that
gripped at my heart.
Tomorrow
was ‘the day’. Tomorrow we would go ‘over the top’. I doubt I was the
only one crying that night. Chances were a third of the men huddled up around me
wouldn’t make it. Their bodies would be abandoned as we fought on for our
lives. That was what I hated most about this stinking war. We couldn’t be
human beings any more. Back home, a friend dying would have meant weeks, if not
months of mourning. Here, it was a minor inconvenience. Bodies were seen as
either useful stepping-stones to climb across the mud, or as smelly nuisances.
Still,
tomorrow at least would be a chance to get out of here, if nothing else. And I
might cop a Blighty. I let my mind wander off back home. Rolling patchwork
hills, smoke puffs of clouds drifting lazily along the horizon, a smell of cut
grass wafting on the breeze…it was a hopelessly romanticised image, or course,
but I allowed myself to think of it for a while at least. I could see the faces
of my friends. All gone now. I was the only one left. The tears came stronger. I
didn’t want to die. I was only 19. I didn’t really care about beating the
Germans. I only wanted to go home and dance at fairs, maybe meet a nice girl.
Instead, I was decaying in a mud hole.
‘God,
please let me live to go home. Please let me go home. Get me out of here…
|
