The Trench by Brian Hesse (great novels txt) 📖

soldier’s eye. He watched, as if in slow motion, bits of polished bone mingled with pieces of bloody meat fly through the dusty air. He was not certain if the other two boys survived, but there was no time to consider another’s fate.

 

Otto ran to his right along the length of the trench running into his fellow comrades, some still struggling in hand to hand fighting, some lying on the ground with large gashes spewing blood, and others just too tired to do anything but stand and stare at the opposite wall of the trench.

 

Otto continued running, occasionally helping a fellow soldier by smashing his shovel into the skull of an enemy. He finally came to the unoccupied command center of the trench and found Friederich lying on his side holding his arm. Otto quickly raced to his side and immediately began bandaging his wound.

 

“Otto, I better not lose my arm. I’d rather die than lose this arm”

 

“Come on my friend, we did our job, back to our home.”

 

Having fulfilled the mission, driving the French to fall back to their second line of defense, having pilfered any remaining enemy food and water, and securing any compromising documentation, Otto carried Friedrich made their way back to their line, other soldiers limping ahead, and behind.

 

Aftermath

 

  “Here you go my friend,” said Otto, as he dragged Friedrich to the edge of the German trench. He laid down on Friedrichs opposite side and pushed his friend over the edge to the muddy ground of the trench floor below. Otto knew this was the only way since many a soldier from both sides met their end with a stray bullet to the back leisurely climbing over their own wall.

   Friedrich let out a loan moan as the open wound on his arm scrapped across the protruding rocks and twigs lining the side of the trench.

 

   “Sorry, Fred old boy,” stated Otto, with indifferent manliness mixed with a touch of feminine concern for the pain he caused his friend.

 

  Otto slid down the side of the trench resting next to Friedrich. The brief period of relaxation behind the protection of the trench walls offered both soldiers a chance to better understand the situation.

 

   “I don’t hear anything?” said Friedrich.

 

  Otto listened expecting the familiar sounds of machine gun fire, explosions, and never-failing screams of the wounded and dying. He decided not to speak another thought out load unless his friend think he was insane. He sniffed the air once more to confirm his suspicions. There was no smell. Not a hint of gunpowder, blood, or death permeated the olfactory senses.

 

   “And look at this fog Otto.” “Did you ever see a fog this thick?”

 

  Otto looked around at the fog, that seemed to grow thicker with each passing moment. He was not alarmed that this strange fog may be gas. Both soldiers were aware of what poisonous gas looked like. This fog had a strange bluish tint intermixed within its normal white and yellowish color.

 

“If this was gas,” stated Otto, “we would be dead by now.”

 

   “No doubt replied Friedrich. “I thought maybe the froggies were using a new type of gas, but as you said, we would have felt the effects by now.

 

  “Hey, by the way Otto old boy, where the hell is everyone?”

 

  For the first time since crawling into the trench, Otto felt anxious. The lack of smell he could attribute to any number of psychological manifestations brought about by combat stress. Soldiers were known to lose sight and hearing despite no physical signs of injury. Why not the sense of smell. He could also rationalize the strange blue tinted fog as some atmospheric phenomenon, a unique mixture of temperature, smoke, dust, and powder. But the absence of boys screaming for their Mothers, and quite a few grown men, looking for that final glimpse of Mom as their life blood ran in rivers along the trench floor, that cannot be explained.

 

  “Friedrich you stay here while I go down the trench to have a look.”

 

  Without waiting for a reply, Otto reached into Friedrichs blood smeared satchel at his side and placed his gas mask on his face. He no longer felt so confident that the fog was nothing more than a harmless environmental effect. He took a piece of bandage from his own pocket, caked with the dirt from No Man’s Land, and wrapped as much of Friedrichs wound as possible. Finally, he left his extra ammunition and canteen half full of warm water and turned to walk into the strange blue fog.

 

   Otto walked cautiously down the length of the trench expecting to trip over the dead and dying bodies that characterize the after math of every battle. He could no longer see for more than a few inches in front of his face, as if the fog grew thicker with each careful step.

 

  “I don’t feel anything beneath my feet,” came a voice from deep within his mind, sending shivers up his spine, and stopping him in his tracks. Afraid to move another step because it felt as if he were not walking on a solid surface. He bent down and placed his hand on the ground half expecting his hand to disappear into an endless void or to break the surface of some strange liquid. He closed his eyes and smiled as his hand touched the dirt floor of the trench.

 

  “Get it together idiot,” he stated out loud, as he straightened up and continued walking blindly through the strange fog. He made a fast-mental calculation based on his number of steps in relation to where he left his wounded friend.

 

  “Oh, Friedrich please don’t bleed out until I get back.” He felt strange hearing himself utter these words, but death in the trenches was as natural as eating and using a latrine. His only hope was that he could be there for his friend, hold his hand, and give some comfort as his friend slipped away into the hands of death.

 

  Otto shook away these thoughts and guessed that he was near his squads dug out. That place of temporary refuge enjoyed just before the mess of battle resumed. He guessed that just another ten to thirty feet, to the right, and he would reach the opening. He stumbled just a few feet to his right, still expecting to fall through the bottom of the unseen floor and placed his hand along the trench wall. He walked another few feet, heart leaping violently in his chest as the trench wall seemed to give way. He stumbled into the sought after dug, out falling into the dark void and unto the dirt floor.

  “Otto, our hero returns,” came the voice of Werner Schmidt.

 

  Otto closed his eyes tightly for a few moments to sharpen his night vision, a little trick he learned from the late Corporal Hoffman. 

 

  He opened his eyes and scanned the darkened room. He felt a wave of relief pass through him as he looked at the familiar faces of Werner Schmidt, Hermann Becker, and Paul Fischer.

 

  Each soldier took their turn expressing their joy at having another member of the old circle alive, and as healthy as can be under such circumstances.

 

  “Where is Friedrich,” asked Werner.

 

 Otto’s face reddened with the thought of forgetting about his friend, still outside bleeding, maybe dying, in that blue fog.

  “He’s just a little way to the left of the entrance. He’s wounded badly in the arm; we need to bring him back here at once.

“You did enough for today my friend,” stated Hermann Becker, walking toward Otto. With a gentle tap on Otto’s shoulder he said, “I will go bring him back, don’t worry about a thing,” Hermann walked out the into the thick fog that glowed eerily in the rays of the sun beaming through the entrance of the dugout.

 

 Otto closed his exhausted eyes and his world went dark.

 

A Thickening Fog

 

 Otto could here talk in the distance imagining the voices of his friends somewhere far off beyond the fog outside. He was conscious but unable to yet open his eyes as he struggled to move his arms and legs. He felt a heaviness on his chest and struggled to take deep breaths, but still unable to move. Each time he tried to force his eyes open, he could only do so for a few seconds each time as though lead weights rested on the lids. Finally, after several minutes he was able to force his arms and legs to move, his breathing resumed normally, and he opened his eyes.

 

   “Ah, sleeping beauty awakes,” came the scratchy adolescent voice of Hermann Becker. “Don’t worry, I got your little lover, Friedrich.”

 

 Otto listened to the laughter of his circle, as he struggled to his feet, feeling comforted that the important ones to him survived the assault, and they were, as he thought, in normal smart-ass operating mode.

 

 Otto scanned the room and saw his friends sitting around the fire in the same positions as the night before the battle. This scene also brought a feeling of comfort to him. He took his place next to Friederich.

 

  “How is that arm old man?”

 

   “Check it out for yourself, barely a scratch.”

 

  Otto looked at the bandage on Friederichs arm with eyes wide as if in shock. He expected to see down to the bone based on the amount of blood he thought he saw on the bandage before leaving him in the fog.

 

   As if reading Otto’s mind, he said, “I know, I thought it was much worse. I’m sorry for making you carry me based on such a superficial wound, but believe me my friend, I really couldn’t walk out there on my own volition.”

 

   Otto felt mixed feelings. On the one hand, he was tempted to punch Friedrich square in the nose for making him risk his own life carrying him. But on the other, he was also deceived by the severity of the wound.

 

    “It’s OK, you don’t have to justify yourself to me Friedrich. I was fooled by the amount of blood also.”

 

   “Hey you two. You’re not the only ones under this mass illusion. I saw Paul walk in here We thought he was a dead man walking with all that blood on his back. Does he look dead to you?”

 

   Otto looked at Paul and remembered how he thought he watched him receive a bullet to the back, but here he was, warming himself by the fire, as comfortable and unscathed as a fresh recruit at the academy.

 

   Otto could not account for any of these strange events, but as a practical person, he could not deny, or complain with the facts…we are all alive.

 

   “So, what now guys, anyone think they will counter attack?” “Is that fog or gas?” “Should we look for the command bunker?”

 

  These were the words of Werner, that met with silence. Nobody in the group huddled around the fire knew what to do. Corporal Hoffman was the one with the answers and Otto watched him die just a few hours before, and always uncomfortable with a leadership position, it did not look to him like anyone was stepping up to take the role.

 

  “Ok, we are all privates here, stated Otto, but we need to act as one. I don’t see any need for an elected leader. Does everyone agree?”

 

  Each of the boys looked to the one to his left and right. Nobody raised a voice of objection to Otto’s suggestion. Friedrich spoke first.

 

  “I agree with Otto. Let’s get the strict Prussian idea of hierarchy out of our heads, at least for the time being. I vote we send a scout to assess the situation and immediately report back.”

 

   “I will go,” said Hermann Becker, picking up his rifle, adjusting his helmet, and taking his gas mask from its satchel at his side.”

 

 “You wont need that, replied Otto. It doesn’t appear to be a poisonous cloud out