As he took his hands away from his ears and opened his eyes, he at first saw
nothing but darkness.  His eyes lowly grew adjusted to the inky black of midnight without
the artificial sunlight of overhead flairs, had he realized that the ground had stopped
shaking beneath him.  Pulling himself out of the caked mud in the trench he hesitantly
stood up into a crouch, keeping his head safely ducked and his shoulders hunched.  Only
now did his heartbeat and breathing begin slow down after mortal terror he'd somehow
just lived through.  It dawned on him that his mouth was agape from panting with fear
moments ago.  He closed it and took a deep breathe through his nose.  And instantly
regretted it.
	More than anything else he was overwhelmed with the stench of scorched things. 
The acrid smell and taste of gunpowder was in the air as well, mingling with the odor of
burnt earth and burnt bodies.  Now that his eyes were again adjusted to the night, he could
see the limbs and trunks of his comrades all about, like they'd been peppered into the
trenches from above.  He began to feel sick, the sights and sounds and smells of war too
much for him to handle, and he hung his head in shame, again breathing through his
mouth.
	Trying to calm himself so he could aid his injured fellows, he recalled with
fondness his lazy days he'd wasted away on the farm back home. He'd signed up for this
war to see Europe, a chance he knew he'd never have again in his life.  But this wasn't
Europe.  This was hell on earth.  Thousands upon thousands of men flinging themselves
before machine guns and mines and barbed wire ... the few making it past those obstacles
doomed to close-quarter trench fighting, feeling a man's dying breath on their face as they
rammed a knife deep into that total stranger.