The long war: By Adam James Draft 1.
Characters: Louis, Pierre, Francis, Henri.
Inspiration: I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream By Harlan Ellison.
February 21st, 1916. 7:12 Am
The cramped nature of the trenches was always a suffocating thing, built 8ft deep and 6ft wide. If you wanted to pass by a comrade in arms, then good luck, without at least having crushed ribs. Everything was compact, even the dugouts and defensive structures, only something fleetingly close to being comfortable if you were sitting down like the hunchback of Notre Dame. It was a blisteringly cold morning, the only things surrounding us mud and sludge, with the odd rat or two skittering about the rotted-wood-lined corridor of the trench. The dugout we were in was oddly quiet, save for the soft murmurings of other soldiers and the striking of a match on a boot sole to light a cigarette. Francis, a young blonde haired blue eyed boy with wisps of hair on his top lip that you may be able to call a pathetic moustache. And Pierre, a tall, handsome young man with brown hair and a clean-shaven face, was huddled around a barrel used as an improvised card table; the game is Belote. Five cards are dealt to each player, and one is turned up. Players, in order, decide to accept the trump suit or pass. Francis and Pierre were betting against each other on who would win. Francis bet his cigarettes, Pierre bet his watch, some old trinket; it didn't matter. Louis stayed to the side, a scrawny, slim man in his mid 20's black, middle-parted hair and a sharp pencil moustache, the opposite of Francis, who sat on an old munitions box, smoking as he grinned at Pierre, exhaling the smoke through his nose, pointing at him with his cigarette. Louis - "This is the third time in the past hour you've lost, might as well just back out and keep that watch you're so fond of, hm?" Pierre scoffed, tossing down his cards, scattering them into the darkness, and snatching the watch back. Pierre - "Get off my ass, will you? I wouldve won. Bordel de merde!" He muttered to Louis before tossing a cup at Francis. Francis - "Take it easy, will you, you lost fair and square i bet mine you bet yours only fair. I get the watch." As Pierre and Francis bickered, Louis just laughed and took another drag as he watched the two get into a scuffle, far outside of the dugout, just on the horizon of the rolling hills and green grass, a faint rumbling shatters the duo's squabbles. vibrations and shockwaves in the far distance, the sound travelling into the dugout, the kind of vibration that climbs its way up from your feet and jets up your spine that you can feel in your chest. Then, faint whistling, this is when the calm, quiet morning turned into hell.
February 21st, 7:15 Am.
Artillery bombardments shattered the air, dirt, flowers, and grass, with each shell sending them flying. Massive craters appeared one after the other, loud whistles, then deafening bangs, sounding all around the trenches and over the mountains like train wheels picking up speed on a track. Miles off, it started faint, then crept closer until eventually the shells hit just 20 feet where the three (Louis, Pierre, Francis) were sitting. The shell hits the centre of the trench corridor, sending soil and wood spitting it up into the sky. One of their fellow soldiers, Louis, couldn't remember their name. Some boy ended up there because the recruiting officer didn't care enough, or they were patriotic and eager, just 16 years old. got eviscerated into tiny bits of meat and pulp. His helmet and guts are flying off in different directions. The only thing left of where the shell hit was a crater, burnt wood, and the boy's arm; some bits that didn't resemble his hand looked like spit-roasted pig on a skewer. Louis, normally oh so calm, stared at the spot where the boy was, in incomprehensible disgust, his handsome features curling up as he retched all over his boots. The other two, Francis and Pierre, quickly stood up, hauling Louis to his feet. Francis - "Come, we need to move quickly to a bunker i-i there's one fairly close if we move fast we'll be there in no less than 10 minutes." The other soldiers in the dugout scrambled out, heading in opposite directions up and down the trench, whether to desert, head to another dugout, or to pray and hope. They didn't know or think about it. The only thing burned into their minds was the bang, then the boy scorched into the dirt. This wasn't supposed to happen; they thought the war would be over by March, "so much for the quiet." Pierre thought as the three trudged along the long, zig-zagged corridors of the trench. As they walked, the whizzes and bangs of the artillery bombardment filled their ears, spewing dirt over them and the fields. Trees in the far distance got stripped of bark and tossed into the air. As they travelled, they got hit mid-air, again and again. Before coming to rest somewhere far off. It was the same for *EVERY* tree. Men screamed, burned, crawled away, some blown in half, still alive, choking on their own blood or lined and shot with shrapnel. Then *AND* only then. It was extremely quiet, but not because they stopped screaming, no. A shell had landed *very* close to the trio, causing them short-term hearing loss and an extreme, angry headache-inducing ringing to fill their ears.