2


The British infantry formed a line and advanced toward the German trenches, hidden from sight by clouds of dust and acrid cordite smoke from the shelling.
After days of living underground, they now felt horribly exposed as they crossed the muddy, open ground of no-man's land.
They heard sporadic rifle fire in front of them as the first Germans recovered from the bombardment and stepped up to their firing positions. A man several yards away cried out and dropped face down in the mud. Their first casualty.
Then the machine-guns started, their monotone stutter audible over all the other noise. The German gunners slowly traversed their weapons back and forth and whole segments of the advancing British line wavered and collapsed. Alan kept going, chin tucked down onto his chest, shoulder angled forward as if walking into a driving rain.
A couple of men beside him tumbled over, screaming. Joseph was one of them, clutching at his left leg. Alan started back to help his friend, but sergeant Campbell grabbed him and kept him in the line.
"Stretcher bearers will come for him," Campbell shouted. "Keep going!"
German light field guns commenced firing, their shells' sharp explosions creating a storm of shrapnel.
Moving slowly over the slippery, shell-churned ground, the survivors in Alan's platoon got close enough to see the enemy wire; their artillery had blown fewer gaps in it than they'd hoped for. They spent frustrating minutes exposed to machine-gun fire trying to find a way past it.
Through a nightmare of screaming lead, death and fiery hell, they came close enough to see the enemy trenches, their parapets lined with sandbags and wooden machine-gun bunkers. And they could also see the individual Germans firing at them.
One in particular Alan saw very clearly. He was a young man, operating the bolt action of his Mauser rifle to eject an empty casing and chamber a fresh round. His eyes were wide, terrified at the sight of the Englishmen approaching. He hesitated for a moment, unsure of who to fire at next. Then he looked up and saw Alan, fifty feet away. Their eyes met briefly. The German raised his rifle.
It happened in the space of a heartbeat, yet in slow motion. He could almost feel the rifle's sights lining him up. With an almost detached urgency he willed his legs to move, to lay down, but it was much too late.
As Alan stood watching, all sound suppressed but that of his slow inward breath, the German's rifle fired. He saw it kick, puff white smoke. And an eternity later felt the bullet smash into his chest with the force of a sledgehammer.
He felt himself fall backwards, arms outstretched, his own rifle dropping from nerveless fingers. He slid down into a deep crump hole filled with stagnant water and bodies.
And there he lay, each breath an agony...


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