“Sam!” I shouted over the noise, “we need to get to over there”, whilst nodding to my left, towards the trench we should have been in, instead of the thigh deep drainage channel we’d mistaken it for.“Sam?”
I ducked down and turned round. Sam was looking up into the sky, his eyes lifeless, his neck and chest a deep crimson colour. He was gone. I stared at him. A million thoughts and feelings passed my eyes, then an explosion somewhere nearby rained mud down around me.
I turned away, swallowed all my feelings bar the rage, reloaded and stuck my head up over the edge, further than I should have, fuelled by a hot white anger that interfered with me and caused me to scream as I shot. The magazine was gone in a couple of seconds.
Duck down, reload, breathe. Back up again. There was no-one out in the open to shoot at, so I shot in the direction of the trees where they seemed to be coming from, then took a couple of pot shots at the tank, before thinking better of it and ducking again, adrenalin shaking my arms. I glanced over at Sam and smiled.
The explosions kept coming, the closer ones shaking my skull, making my teeth chatter and my brain bounce. Sam and I were split from the others. The tank I’d stupidly shot at was about 100 yards ahead of me, picking its way around the craters, trying to flank our line. It was firing off to my left, where the guys were holed up. I saw a few troops come sneaking around to my side of the tank. My senses had returned and I resisted the urge to shoot straightaway. I smiled.
60 yards and closing. I took a step down, reached behind me and pulled the two grenades from Sam’s chest, then grabbed a magazine. I waited a few seconds for the tank to close, all the while examining the now-rumbling mud, then unpinned a grenade and threw it at the front corner, then unpinned the other and threw it at the rear corner. I had one grenade left myself and there were no other bodies around to take from.
As I threw the second, the first exploded, taking three men out, and causing the other 3 to hit the deck. Then the second grenade went off, taking another out. Two left, and they were confused as shit. I smiled as I eyed them through the sights. They were like scared little boys, looking round for the source of the grenades, grimacing with wide eyes. I gently squeezed the trigger, a head snapped back, and then fell forward.
The other immediately disappeared round the back of the tank.He knew where the bullet had come from. Maybe he saw the flash? The tank was 20 yards away now, and the front gunner was turning the machine gun turret towards me and sprayed ammo all around me. I got low and stayed hidden. Sam took some for me.
A couple of seconds after the last burst, I chanced a look – the tank was almost level with us now, the front gun now concentrating on the second wave, about 50 yards behind us. The main gun was firing along the line, away from me. I waited for it to pass, for the last one to reappear. So I could see his face when I got him. But he didn’t appear.
I poked my head up further, heard bullets whistling over my head and immediately dropped. “Wanker! You’ve given your position away now” I thought, then thought about whether to try and cross the open country between me and the others. I slumped down into the trench, unsure what to do, frozen by indecision. I waited, whispering to myself, to Sam, just to hear my own thoughts out loud.
I could still feel the tank moving, the earth rumbling. Artillery had stopped for now as the tank had broken our lines. I heard a shout; ”sticky bomb!”; and buried my chin into my chest, smiling, knowing the fiery fate that awaited the Tank crew, if they didn’t climb out and get shot first.
As soon as the second sticky bomb exploded, I started up the edge of the muddy ditch, and crawled. The artillery returned, a huge boom deafening me – I stopped while mud rained over the area again. I was getting closer to the trench, and caught a faint whiff of tobacco as I crawled. I could see the fresh tank tracks in the mud, several inches deep. I rolled into one, facing the enemy to my right and fired off a couple of shots, more for my own satisfaction than anything else.
I heard someone shout “covering fire!” from my right and immediately froze. They were off to my left, weren’t they? Was I heading away from the company? I heard a few small thuds ahead of me, the ground spitting mud at me, as the enemy lines sought me out. As I listened, frozen, I realised the voices were coming from my left. The last explosion had deafened my left ear so I could only hear from my right ear. I now knew what Foster was talking about when he’d kept going on about “The Fog of War”. I got up and ran left to our trench, before I could confuse myself again, and almost immediately fell face-first into a large crater.
I pulled myself out the mud. One of the kids, a country lad, Shaw, was there. He was staring into space, like how I’d left Sam, except he wasn’t dead. He was sat, straddling the guy from behind the tank.
Shaw’s knuckles were white as he held onto that throat with all his might, despite him being long dead. I gently loosened his hands, and then pulled his head to my chest while he sobbed. War could wait.
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