harlow1776-blog

[harlow1776-blog]

The Great War

Hi. I’m an amateur writer and I have never shared my writing on the Internet. I would love any feedback that you can give. The following is a story about a French soldier in World War One.                                                                         ______________________________________________________________

Jean-Baptiste Durand

France

1916

                 I rouse to the deafening sound of silence. The smell of decay and death hits me like a train. I open my eyes and look around. The corpses of soldiers, French and German, surround me on all sides. They are splattered with  mud and blood and few of them are in one piece. Limbs are strewn around me and men’s entrails are spilled, stained with dirt and blood. I vomit, tearing off a piece of my already-torn sleeve and wiping my mouth it. I cast it aside and push myself to my feet. I try to remember anything, and it starts to come back. My name is Jean-Baptiste Durand, I am nineteen years old, and I am a soldier in the French army. It is 1916. An explosion must have knocked me unconscious. How long have I been asleep for? I stand, picking up the pistol at my side. I scan the ground for ammunition and see a piece of paper. I pick it up and read it. “Get to the bunker!!!” is written on it, in French. I put down the piece of paper and start walking, death surrounding me like a heavy fog. 

                I am lost in the maze of the trenches in a matter of minutes. The only sounds are my footsteps, the rain, and the occasional yell and gunshot in the distance. My ankles are caked in mud. I wander in the direction of the yells, hoping that I come across someone, anyone, French or otherwise. Minutes feel like an eternity as I walk.  I cough into my shoulder, trying to quiet it as much as possible. My eyelids feel like they weigh a ton, but I keep walking, fearful of making a noise. I walk alone for what feels like years and hear a noise - muffled speech. I pick up my pace. The speech continues, and I come to a harrowing realization - it’s German. I stop, paralyzed, arguing with myself frantically over what to do. I panic and start running. The German turns from muffled speech to shouts. I run as fast as I possibly can until something takes hold of my leg. I fall on my face. I try to stand and am pushed down and shushed. I hold my breath and close my eyes as the footsteps become louder. I open my eyes, expecting death, and see five Krauts run past us, shouting. I lie there, a heavy weight still on my back until long after the Germans have passed. The weight is lifted and I am told to stand. I look at my benefactor -it is a man in a French uniform, the pants soaked with blood, his face wrapped in dirty bandages. I open my mouth to thank him and he shakes his head.

“I am going to give you instructions, and you are going to follow them exactly unless you wish to die, do you understand?”