The Trench by Brian Hesse (great novels txt) 📖

for the grinder of the front, and not just one front in the West. Just a few days back word came up the line that trenches were being hastily dug on the Eastern front facing the Russians.

 

Private Hermann Becker, Otto thought, was as just as dark as Paul but in a much subtler, disconcerting way. Paul made no attempt to hide his arousal with the site of destruction. Hermann killed with closed unmoving lips, steady breath, and unshaking hands . His countenance was that of a professional servant, dealing out death because it was his duty and not his pleasure, but his eyes gave away the brewing storm beneath. If one were to watch his eyes as he jabbed a bayonet into an enemy’s guts, one would see a glimmer of sunshine on a field of dead grey, a highlight on a dark landscape. Not surprising to Otto, nobody knew much about Private Becker’s home life. Some say that his Father was a surgeon in Berlin and wished the same for his son, and that Hermann came here by choice. Otto, and most others found this rumor to be ridiculous. Who would ever volunteer to come to a place like this instead of medical school? Otto asked this question in his mind as he watched the shadow of the flames dance across Hermann’s profile, and was not certain any longer how foolish the rumor was.

 

“Oh, there goes Otto looking around analyzing the whole group again,” came the voice of his best friend.”

 

“No, he’s looking for some inspiration for his poetry,” stated Paul. Otto heard the other soldiers in the squad laughing behind him. He turned around with his face just a few inches from Paul’s bare backside.

 

“Here’s some inspiration for a poem old boy,” exclaimed Paul! As everyone laughed, choked on their food, and rolled on the ground like pigs wallowing happily in a field of mud. This was life in the dugout. Everyone respected, protected, and ridiculed everyone within range. Otto laughed with the rest of his group, feeling like he never felt so much in the civilian world, he felt like he belonged.

 

“Attention group,” came a loud guttural shout, followed by the towering bulky frame of Corporal Max Hoffman.

All ten dirty and tired soldiers stood as statues upon hearing the Corporals voice. They all met Corporals, Captains, and Majors before today, but none received as much respect as Corporal Max Hoffman. He made no hesitation in explaining to the ten new arrivals that he was in charge. Otto remembered that speech just months ago before they thrust through the picturesque Belgium frontier.

 

“So, I have been given the dubious honor of leading you into battle. Fresh shit just out of the military training academy. Well let me tell you boys, you forget what you have learned. I am about to give you a tour of your home for the next…Corporal Hoffmann casually took his timepiece from his pocket…Oh, I would say the next several years. Its not much of a home. In fact, it’s the worst place on earth. I am forty-two and asked to be here. I left a productive farm, a half decent looking wife, and more sheep and horses than any farm this side of the Rhine River.”

 

All ten recruits knew this to be an exaggeration, especially since several of the boys already made this erroneous claim, but no one dared call out the Corporal on his boast. He towers over the recruits both vertically and horizontally, standing over six feet tall with the hard-chiseled body of someone all too unfamiliar with sitting in a schoolhouse.

 

“Now, I may sound hard and tough, not unlike some of your Fathers, but I am here to keep you alive, at least long enough until the next batch of green recruits graduate from the girl’s school military training academy. He laughed after this insult, no doubt in Otto’s mind, as he relished the shocked expressions of his audience.

 

This was their first encounter with the Fatherly Corporal Hoffmann, and every day he made good his promise to care for his children.

 

“Ok listen up men. At ease, at ease.”

 

Everyone gathered around the dying fire as the Corporal spoke.

 

“First, get some damn wood on that fire. You fellas will freeze to death before morning or eaten by rats. I want you all nice and toasty and well rested for our dawn attack tomorrow.”

 

Otto scanned the faces of his comrades and for once could not read individual stirrings of emotion beneath the surface. It was as if the threat of a new offensive was enough to frighten all other emotions back into the deepest recesses of the mind, leaving nothing but an empty field of grey. Otto laughed at his own thoughts on the matter. He often became frustrated with his own flights of poetic fancy, but he could not shake the feeling that he could see each man in the dugout silently letting go and accepting their own death hours before the event.

 

“We were hit hard today with the artillery and attack, and we should have attacked as they retreated, but the powers that be decided we weren’t ready.”

 

Corporal Hoffmann leaned his enormous girth toward the eager ears of the group, cupped his left hand to the corner of his mouth and whispered, “the truth is command was unprepared for the attack.”

 

He straightened himself and resumed his normal commanding tone, “So tomorrow at dawn we rush over the ramparts and take the French front-line trench. Our own artillery bombardment will begin five hours before dawn.” He laughed and whispered again, “Just to let them know were coming.”

 

“I will be with you all the way until I may fall myself somewhere in no mans land. I don’t want any of you stopping. You press on until you hit that trench. You throw your grenades, fire a single round, and jump in with shovels and bayonets and start hacking away.”

 

Without another word, Max exited the entrance of the trench knowing that each man knew the preparations to be made. Without speaking, every man retreated to their own space, cleaning rifles, wiping down ammunition, sharpening small shovel’s and bayonets, writing letters to loved ones, and trying to get some sleep just as the German artillery began the preparation bombardment for the next assault.

 

Over the Trench Wall

 

Otto did not sleep that night. Most of the other men attempted to sleep, but very few could find refuge in unconsciousness with the sound of roaring guns, and the knowledge of uncertainty hanging heavy over their heads.

 

He looked at his four threes, Friedrich, Paul, and Hermann, and was glad that he met all of them, regardless of what was to come, at least he had that. He looked around the dimly lit room as the fire died with its last sizzles and spurts and could not find Private Schmidt. But he remembered that Werner Schmidt would already be out in no mans land having found a spot to snipe Frenchmen, like an eagle on his perch scanning the horizon for the weak and forgetful. He would look for the officer fool enough to poke his head too far over the top of the trench, the soldier panicking and trying to run away toward the safety of their second line of defense, and the machine gunners unaware that their mound of protective sandbags have withered away by bullets, exposing the gunner and his assistant. He would fire one round for each of these poor devils and with that one shot, send them to oblivion.

 

The shelling stopped, the whistles blared, the tarp to the entrance to the dugout flung aside, Corporal Hoffman standing just inside the darkened space…”Lets move it out, in positions men, do you want to live forever?”

 

If you were to ask these questions under normal conditions, the answer would be yes, but in no mans land, there was no time to think.

 

Otto and the others rushed out into the soft orange light of the rising sun, and took their positions leaning against the wall of the trench. He found himself right next to one of the wooden ladders, wet and rotting and covered in moss. The whistle sounded followed by shouts up and down the line, “Over the top men, don’t stop until you reach their line.”

 

Without thinking, Otto scaled the ladder and tripped over the edge of the trench. He quickly pulled himself off the ground so as not too be trampled by dozens of others scaling the ladder. He ran into the cloud of smoke and debris kicked around by the recent shelling of their heavy guns far behind the infantry line. His throat burned each time he swallowed what little sticky spit lined the inside of his dirt caked mouth. The dust began to clear.

 

“How far did I run,” he thought, “it must have been a mile or more by now, Am I lost?”

 

The enemy trench was just a hundred yards from his starting position, but was obscured by a cloud of dust, making each man disoriented and unsure of direction. As if reading his mind, he heard the voice of Corporal Hoffman behind him, cut off in mid-sentence…”Just keep running straight ahe…Pop, pop, pop, the sound of three distinct rifle shots and the voice of Corporal Hoffman no more.

 

 Otto looked to his left and right and watched several men hit the ground as red mist filled the air.

 

Machine gun fire, enemy artillery lobbing shells to stop the advance.

 

“I must be close. I must be close.” He shouted.

 

Otto could now make out the blue silhouettes of the enemy soldiers just a few feet to his front. He kept running until the ground seemed to fall beneath his feet as if opening wide to suck him into the bowels of hell itself. He fell inside a large crater made by the previous nights shelling. Along with Otto, three more soldiers fell into the same hole.

 

Otto scanned the frightened faces and did not recognize these men. He wished that at least one of his friends were here with him, but there was no time to think about that.

 

“Why haven’t I seen you three before today,: he asked, feeling stupid immediately after. The trenches were constantly shifting like a sea of new faces, two new ones to replace every dead or wounded.

 

“We just came up last night from the reserve trench,” stated a small blonde-haired blue-eyed boy with the unblemished feminine face of a dirt streaked porcelain doll.

 

“Jesus Christ your just babies,” replied Otto, feeling like his Father.

 

“Ok listen, I don’t care about how the attack is going, because if we stay here, we are going to die. All three of us are going to climb to the edge of this hole and throw one grenade as hard as we can straight ahead, then we move out into their trench. Let’s go!”

 

Otto did not give any of the boy’s time to think, knowing that a moment to think in battle is a sure-fire way to invite cowardice into the soul.

 

The boys followed Otto to the edge of the crater, pulled the pins on their grenades, and threw as hard as their shaking arms would allow.

 

“Over the top let’s go! Shouted Otto, as the boys followed screaming a cracked pubescent war cry.

 

Otto jumped first into the trench landing and slipping on the mess made by the four grenades. He felt exhilaration when he tripped over the broken metal of a large caliber machine gun. The concussion and flying shrapnel of the grenades tore apart six enemy soldiers and effectively put a machine gun out of commission. His euphoria did not last long as he heard the bright-eyed boy screaming from behind. Otto turned and watched an enemy soldiers bayonet jutting from the front of the screaming porcelain boy. Otto raised his rifle remembering that there was still one round seated in the chamber. He squeezed the trigger sending a whizzing piece of metal past the dying boys head and into the left side of the enemy just above the French