Short Story i had to write for the class.
Enjoy.
Any criticisms/ critiquing be nice.
be warned its pretty bad.
“Why is it always raining?” the young private cheerlessly said to himself. He stood in the trench which was quickly filling up with water. It had been raining every day for a fortnight in a barren of featureless terrain that this French region had become. The young private looked out over the muddy terrain to see nothing but a few dying trees, tatters of clothing that came off of fallen soldiers, and the craters where the enemy artillery has landed in the previous weeks. The rain gently rattled against his helmet, the only sound that he had heard for a couple hours.
“How's it going over here” the private's corporal dutifully said as he came from behind him and grabbed him on the shoulder reassuringly. The corporal face had been hardened and scarred from his service in the army. He had been here since the first day of the battle almost three months ago. The private thought it had been tough for him for the three weeks that he had been in the trench.
“Everything is fine, sir” the private said so boisterously that he nearly past out from the exertion “no sign of the enemy since there last attack”. The last attack coming shortly after breakfast when the field was covered in fog. The attack would have been a complete surprise had it not been for the sound of a gunshot in the fog, most likely a soldier who had tripped in the mud and accidentally shot his weapon. The private guessed that because he remembered how hard it was to run in the mud or walk for that matter. With every step more and more mud would become attached to his shoes weighing down each step he made in his run with the speed to make it to the opposing trench before the machine guns would down mow the troops. He like every soldier dreaded the charge over what has become known as “No Man's Land”.
“Well, that is good, private but I was asking how everything was with you?” The corporal had always cared about his troops more so than any other officer even if his face did not belie any of that warmth. Then again the private thought, if I was here at this hell of earth I wouldn't be able to display any of the warmth I would feel either. The three weeks he had been here had taken his toll on him mentally and physically. The bumps, the bruises, the grazes and cuts by bayonets, shrapnel or whatever hard or sharp thing a soldier would use, he had seen shovels, pans, table legs all used as implements to cause the enemy to cause them to stop attacking. Mentally the constant threat of attacks or the need to defend has kept him on edge, the explosions from the artillery falling all around him has caused more than a few people in the trenches to return to a infantile state, the scene of men falling all around him with the blood splattering on their uniforms. Pieces of the innards of his former soldiers would be flying around too if they were unlucky enough to be hit by the machine gun.
He remembered a couple days ago on one of those god forsaken charges when he was running with he fellow soldiers and a private next too him whom had arrived earlier that day. He was unlucky enough to be lacerated by bullets from a machine gun nest to the left of our position and his intestines were torn apart and flung all over the immediate area. A piece of them flew up and hit the young private on the side of the face while he was running. The shock of the intestine hitting his face had cause the young private to fall over while the bullets flew over where he used to be standing. These events nearly caused the private to lose it and just curl up into a ball. Letting the enemy find him and have it end there. If it had it not been for the corporal that pulled him into one of the craters where the young private was able to pull it together by the aura of strength that the corporal had around him. Thankfully the whistle that the signified the attack, also signifies the retreat had blown which that allowed him to come back to the relative safety of the trenches to recoup and recollect himself so that he did not break then and there.
The private thought carefully of the question the corporal asked and thought whether he should give him a simple platitude or tell him the truth. “Frankly sir, I have never felt worse in my life, I am standing in water up to my knee. I am wet and cold. I am fearful of the enemy artillery coming down or another charge by them. I am even more fearful of us attacking. I hardly sleep anymore, I haven't had a good meal in three weeks and I hardly can remember my life before I come to this place, this piece of shit land.” The boldness that it took to say that especially to a officer he would not have ever had before joining the army. Maybe this place gives you something to you instead of always taking or maybe it was the fact that he knew it was not going to matter because his luck will run out and he would be killed before any ill effects of his statement would affect him.
The corporal coolly responded “You get used to it.” The corporal pauses and looks out over the horrid landscape. “I have to go check on the others, I will see you later in the mess tent. Yes?” The corporal then continued down the trench, trending through the water to the next soldiers in the trench.
Somehow the corporal words were comforting. The private peered out of the landscape as the rain continued to fall on the already waterlogged mud. He had failed to notice while talking to the corporal that the rain had lightened and was down to a light drizzle. It had become quieter than before the corporal had come and the rattle on his helmet was nothing but a light ding. He found that the noise was almost soothing compared with the horrible sounds that litter the senses during battle. The young private was glad that he could relax even a little bit. He put his head down on his arms as he laid down towards the top of the trench by standing on a wood support to get out of most of the water that had accumulated in the bottom of the trench. He had a pleasant thought that all the water that had been raining lately with make the mud more dilute, a little slippery but at least it would attach so much to his boots, and that was his thought as he doze off.
The shrill sound of the whistle had awoken the young private from his slumber. He woke up in a daze as he glanced around trying to get his bearings on what was happening at the moment. How long was I out, what was happening. As a loud bang, had caused the private to drop to the ground and cover his head. He looked to where the loud noise had come from. A large artillery shell had landed in the trench and blown up the group of soldiers that were down the trench from them. Water and mud were flung into the air along with the soldiers. When the commotion settled down, the young private attention was drawn to something that was floating in the bottom of the trench about five feet from him. The helmet of one of the soldiers had landed there, forty feet from where he was standing before the artillery shell hit.
The shrill of the whistle continued as down the trench, plodding through the water sending waves through the trench, a sergeant came screaming “GO, GO, GO” in between blows of his whistle. He came to where the private was laying down in the mud and shoved him up and out of the trenches. The young private, stood up and took off running.