TotW 265: Mud and Blood - VOTE THREAD!
Mud and Blood
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Submission 1 Mud and Blood
The surgeon stood outside the medical tent having a well-deserved cigarette, he savoured the taste of the unfiltered tobacco, blue smoke curling away from him reaching up into the misty atmosphere that had hung over the battlefields of Ypres, or wipers as the rankers called it.
He had finished dealing with the latest round of casualties from the last series of clashes, the last man, well boy really, had finally stabilised, no more than eighteen if he had to guess. The lad had lost both legs beneath the knees, what sort of future would he have?
He took one last deep pull on his navy cut cigarette, and dropped the butt in the mud, standing on it to extinguish it. He rubbed his eyes whilst yawning, dog tired after sawing and sewing his way through the bone and muscle tissue of the forty-seven men he had personally operated on, he had roughly averaged a man for every thirty minutes at the operating table, which in reality was a ‘requisitioned’ farmhouse dining table, still at the front a man couldn’t be choosy about medical equipment.
Over twenty-four hours on his feet, he knew that if he sat down, he would fall into a deep slumber and be unable to help the last man that he could now see being stretchered behind the last line of trenches and directly towards him.
He watched as a small party of men carefully carried their burden over the pitted and drenched landscape, once he imagined this would have been lush green fields of grazing grass, or ripe golden cornfields, now it was just the colour of mud, not brown though, more a lifeless grey, as if even the earth itself had given up any hope of growing new life from its now shell-pocketed soil.
To his left a man with a large box camera from the London Evening News was perched precariously on the back of a flatbed truck, the surgeon watched as the nitrate in the photographer’s film sparked as he exposed the camera to take a picture of the men as they struggled with their burden.
One of the soldiers had caught the flash of the camera and stared back at the photographer with a look on his face that seemed to say ‘I hope you enjoyed the view vulture’, at least that was what the surgeon assumed. A steady rain began to fall as the men finally approached the medical tent, they approached the surgeon and gently put the stretcher on the ground before him.
He crouched down and placed his hand on the man’s neck searching for a pulse, he could feel the ice-cold stagnancy of a man just gone. Shaking his head, he rose to his feet and pointed the men to where the bodies of the fallen were laid out in neat rows awaiting identification if possible and then burial.
‘Sorry lads, this one didn’t make it.’
Submission 2 28 September 1918.Location:The Battleground of Ypress-The rain fell in little droplets.The fighting had stopped.The men around him were drenched and restless,for despite the apparent silence and the overcast conditions it was clear that the British were planning another assault.He was tired .He hated the war.He dreamed of peace.A glorious peace.He sitting in his study,the sun peeking out from the windows,he painting with wonderfull and delicate colours and sipping warm coffee from his wooden cup.Then someone would call him out from the window "Hallo Kamrad" and he would reply "Yes Kamrad,how may i help you" .At that moment both of them would be interrupted by the heavenly sound of the national anthem as ranks after ranks of gaily dressed soldiers marched up the streets of 'Occupied Paris' carrying the victorius flag of Germany with them .As he and his Kamrad watched with pride,flowers hundreds of them fell from the windows .It was raining flowers,but why were they so cold.Suddenly he was brought back to the reality of war .The rain had intensified .Then he heard thunder.But that,that was not thunder,a thunder bangs differently.It was shell fire from the British ranks.Sodden,he picked up his rifle which he had dropped to the cold earth.He was tired now,both physically and mentally.Then he saw the water in stagnancy in no man's land and he saw the god almighty himself in that water.Oh how golden he looked.He was calling him "Come my son,come" .Greatfull he made up his mind.It was time to go.So he picked up his rifle,hooked on his greandes and attached his bayonet for that last ecstacy of pride.For that last kick of glory .Then he ran wildly towards the British ranks and heard a loud deafning sound .Then all was silent .No fire ahead of him .No sound behind him .As he looked behind in horror he saw that a British shell had destroyed his regiment and killed his Kamrads.He had been saved .Suddenly the British marched ahead to pick out any survivors.He had nowhere to run as a young soldier called Henry Tandy had him at gunpoint."Good,atleast i will get to join my Kamrads" he excliamed as he waited for the final bang that would claim his soul .But that never came.The Britisher signalled to him with his hands "Go back".The pity on his face was clear.He thought for a second and then ran ."Serving my nation alive is better than dying now " .He ran and he ran and he ran back to safety .After the war he returned to Berlin and got a new job to spy the actions of a newly formed anti-democratic party.What happened next was something that shook the world.
Submission 3 The men drag themselves across the bomb shattered earth. With each step, the sucking mud threatening to suck their boots clean off their feet. A man amongst them looks at the sky, and wonders when was the last time he ever saw the sun. It seems as though the sky is perpetually darkened with smoke, and the rain is ceaseless as it pounds the men into submission worse than any artillery barrage. The men were drenched, and tired. They were tired of this cursed war that seemed without end. “It’ll be over by Christmas”, oh how naive they were back then. “We’ll give them a licking and they’ll scurry back to Berlin”. Instead the war had devolved into a constant back and forth, a stagnancy had set in that none had noticed. Even day to day concerns such as finding enough food to eat was seen as ambitious, instead you focused on the next step and the one after that. If that next step just so happened to be on a mine, then you thanked the heavens that you were out of this damned war with nary a thought for the loss of your leg and being fated to in a bag for the rest of your life.
Submission 4 September 26th, Polygon Wood,
St.-Eloi Section,
0500 - The sun starts to rise above Polygon Wood. Ceaseless shelling has turned this once luscious Flemish forest into a barren wasteland covered in enormous craters, uprooted trees and decaying bodies. The dry spell we’ve been having seems to have dried the earth beneath our feet. If we die today, at least we won’t be knocking on Saint-Peter’s door in drenched and soiled fatigues.
1125 - The enemy guns haven’t stopped firing since 0730 this morning. The Huns are probably softening us up for yet another assault by the 31st infantry division. Considering I’ve been on both sides of the trench, I’m not sure who I pity more. Signs of previous skirmishes keeps us on our toes, the frailty of humanity ever vivid.
1410 - Fritz finally stopped raining shells on British lines about an hour ago. A testament to cruelty, Parsons’ lifeless body still lies a few dozen yards into No Man’s Land, splayed grotesquely on his back, torn in half from shoulder to belly button; a near-unrecognizable formless mass. One of the shells scored a direct hit on his observation post further up the trench. Poor sod never stood a chance.
1630 – Rain started falling a moment ago. Good. After almost a fortnight of drought, water supplies were at a critical low. Stagnancy has wreaked havoc on the provisions. A few more days and we would have seen desertion, or worse. Thankfully we still have grog to keep the boys content. No sign of Fritz. Maybe they were finally tired of this senseless slaughter and turned back home.
1700 – Gas. Gas, followed by whistles and men shouting. A moment of panic. Eingreif troops cut our forward line in half like a scalpel would separate flesh from bone. The situation for our section is critical. My mind prepares for battle, my heart beats home.
Best of luck to all of our entrants!
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