Barrage

Barrage

I finished with the dead man and placed him on top of the pile of other decomposing bodies. The stench hit my nose like a bullet hits the bone your brain is encased in. It smashes straight through to the sensitive area.

“BARRAGE!” I heard the General shout.

He took my arm away from the rotting corpses and pushed me out of the way. He landed on top of my chest but stayed there as a spraying of mud and shrapnel flew over our heads. I stayed as still as I possibly could, focusing on my breathing and heart rate. My heart was hammering against my ribs nineteen to the dozen but so was the General’s. If he was scared, his face didn’t show it.

A short while later the barrage had stopped and the General scrambled to get off of me. I lay there in utter shock. The General brushed himself down and helped me up just as the C.O came over.

“General Jovanka there you are. Oh and Private Smith too. Good we need both of you to assist in the clear up. There’s a preliminary barrage to your right. You were both lucky to have missed it,” The C.O said.

“Should we examine the damage?” General Jovanka asked.

“Yes. This way,” The C.O said.

I helped over the next few days by clearing bucket after bucket of watery mud. The waterlogged trench has a lot of downfalls. In the mud you had to be careful not to shrapnel from shells. You also had to be tough for parts of dead bodies were everywhere. There was an arm here and a string of brain there.

On my final day of clearing the damage, I found something no one should ever see. In the mud I saw my friend, Mark. I’d been worried about him for days. He did not come home the day of the barrage and I had started to fear the worst. It was true.

Half of his body had already been decomposed by the looks of it. Flesh had been ripped away from the bones like what you would see after someone had carved a chicken. Claret blood poisoned the ground below and flies nestled on his yellowing bones and matted hair on his head. His eyes had been gouged out and his lips were slightly ajar. The ghost of his last scream echoed on his lips. Suddenly his mouth opened fully with a crack of bones and out came a brown rat. It aimed its jump directly at me. I screamed and ran backwards. Those vermin send shivers down my spine. That was the start of my shell shock.

I became an insomniac for the first time in my life. Dark rings of pure irritation circled my eyes. The slightest things irked me and the slightest things made me want to cower. Those God damn rats will be the death of me. They scamper over us as we shine our boots or over our faces as we are dozing off at night. We chuck our food cans over the top and at night we hear the rattle rattle tap of the rats rolling about in them. When I close my eyes I see the rat flying towards me. I see poor Mark. I see the rat. It’s always the rat. Footsteps in the distance make me want to recoil into my dugout further and further.

“Last night some of our troops were taken by enemy lines. We are to retrieve them,” The General informed us.

I lay in my dugout listening. A brown rat came scampering towards me and my bayonet and bolster training came back to me. I picked my bayonet up and stabbed the rat when it got close enough.

“Where’s Smith?” General Jovanka asked.

“Sir I don’t think he should go today. He’s not himself. He’s: irritable, tired and scared. I can’t describe it, Sir,”             Tom defended.

“Shell shock… Smith, get out here!” He shouted but I refused; going would mean my death.

“Come one Keith, please?” Tom pleaded.

He was scared he was going to lose a friend. The first friend he made in Étaples training camp and the last one by his side. A hand yanked me out of my dugout and forced me into a standing position. I looked down at my shoes and another rat came by, black this time, but the visions came back. I screamed and threw myself to the mud. Bury me like you buried Mark! Come on Germans I beg of you! Do it! I don’t get burying; I get yanked up again.

“He seems alright,” The General said.

“You’re kidding right?”

“His disposition is towards rats not guns, therefore he will go today,”

They’re not listening. What can I do to make him listen, to show him that I am not alright? It came to me and I did it without a second thought. My mind was so screwed that I basically did anything without a second thought. In the end it was the General holding his jaw and glaring at me.

“Keith!” Tom yelled.

“Smith! Right, that’s it. I’ve got no choice. He’s a coward,” General Jovanka said.

“Please Sir, don’t,” Tom begged.

General Jovanka didn’t listen. He led me to an area where there were plenty of gun shots in the wall of mud where the firing squad had had target practise before.

“The C.O isn’t here today, Smith; he’s in rest camp,” General Jovanka informed me and I nodded.

I moved towards the mud wall after a short push from the General. I looked up to see Tom pleading with the General and General Jovank loading his rifle.

“He’s a coward, Maxse. I’ve got no – no – no choice,” He stuttered.

“You don’t want to do this so why are you?”

“It’s my job,” He said simply and shot.

I fell to the ground just as I realised something: those rats were the death of me.