As I Lay Dying

Sixteen

1916

Despite my exhaustion, I've barely slept all night. My eyes have closed then I've jolted awake, picturing Jimmy on watch with Goodham... Jimmy exhausted, climbing slowly over the trench, a bullet singing it's path to his heart before he's even fully over the top.

There's no way he can fight come morning time. He'll either fall asleep on watch and face the fatal punishment for that, or manage to get through the night and have to force himself into battle as an easy target to be shot.

All night images of Jimmy's lifeless eyes swirl in my mind. Sometimes, in my exhausted state, his face becomes Pige's, or any other of the countless men I've seen die.

I don't know how much more I can lose before I'm completely broken.

I tried so hard after Evelyn left, after my baby died, I tried so hard not to feel, to shut myself off. Everything I touch burns to ashes at my feet.

In that moment I know beyond a doubt that I would happily trade places with him. He has everything to live for, I have nothing. Just my dear friend. He's become the only thing that's important to me.

Dawn breaks and I stare at the dull light of the rising sun. More days will pass. The sun and seasons have no care for our earthly worries, they continue regardless. A thousand years from now the same sun will rise and my troubles will be long buried and forgotten, the day will dawn on some new troubles, some new anguish.

I slump back, feeling the thick smear of mud stain my jacket.  No one else in the reserve trench is awake yet. Perhaps another hour before it starts and they run over the top.

I'm startled by the sound. I haven't heard it in so long that at first I think I'm imagining it.

A singular, lonesome birdsong greets the sunrise.

How long since I last heard this noise?

Tears well again in my eyes as I listen to it. So pure, something I took utterly for granted when I had the chance to hear it everyday. I close my eyes, relishing in the sound.

It stops suddenly and my eyes fly open as a hand grabs my jacket.

"Private Styles?" The boys green eyes are brighter for the coating of dried mud across his face.

"I have a message for you." He glances round the silent trench before pressing a scrap of paper into my hand and running back down the muddy walls before I can even speak.

I open it slowly, recognising Luke's untidy scrawl;

Giant is safe. No worries mate. Pray for us, the little lad is scared.

I stare down at it. Obviously he can't write outright what he wants to say in case it's intercepted.

Little lad... Tommy is afraid. Giant must be Jimmy... But he's safe? How? The attack hasn't even started yet.

I tear the note up into tiny pieces and push them deeply into the mud at my feet. It seems like minutes before the loud roar of battle begins.

The other soldiers shuffle around me. They all look as guilty as myself, we're all aware that while we're resting our friends are out there dying.

It goes on forever. We sit waiting impatiently for snippets of information from people nearer the action. A young soldier next to me curls up in ball and sobs loudly as news feeds back to us that his brother didn't even make it over the trench. No one reacts and I wonder vaguely when we got so used to it, so hardened to human suffering.

It's hours, it feels like days, before news trickles in that we had a small victory. It's over, we managed to get across no mans land to the German trench, for what little good it will do us.