#1

A Chapter by Zachary

The soldier walks towards his destiny in this opening chapter.

The mud on the fields reminded him of jellied eels; as he walked those eels spoke in a dialect that sounded as if they were sucking on a gobstopper. Each boot he lifted was as if he were releasing it from the bowels of the Earth, as if he were walking on the blubber of a whale. Silence greeted him from the sky.

Grey clouds hung over him, looking like they may soon decide to cry. The clouds echoed his heart; the scarred and barren landscape echoed his mind. He continued walking over the field of eels, for why he could not say; in which direction he was not sure. All he knew was that he was alive and all the time he lived he had to keep walking; for at this moment in time he was alone. For all he knew he might be the last survivor of the human race.

An explosion in the distance gave him his answer. He was not the last of mankind, there was another, and that other was still trying to gain an advantage against an enemy that he could no longer see. His uniform was crusted and heavy; brittle mud broke like a branch as he moved his arms. He wanted to touch his forehead, to feel if he was real, but if he removed his helmet it might be the last thing he did. He had seen it happen, far too many times; and every time his friends would go from being as sweet as apple pie to an Eton Mess. He did not want to become another dessert on a landscape of jellied eels. He wanted to live.

His rifle was heavy; a Lee-Enfield Mark 1 bolt-action. It was cumbersome, but the army insisted on it. It had a history dating back to the Boer War so why would it not work? A pistol hung at his hip. He couldn’t remember if he had used it lately. He couldn’t remember if he was really here or if he was lying in bed at his house, living with his parents, waiting for the doorbell to ring so that he could go down to the pub and see Grace. His mother didn’t like Grace.

An avenue of trees lined up ahead of him like a firing squad. Through mud-splattered eyes he tried to gauge the enemy in the darkness, his heart wanted to live, his head no longer cared. He had to keep walking because there was no difference to which was more dangerous, being in an open field or walking towards the trees; either way if he was going to be shot he was going to be shot. If the Germans wanted to shoot him then he would join Bobbo, and Spikey, and all the others who will no longer knock on his front door to invite him down to the pub so that his parents didn’t know he was seeing Grace. His father was reticent about Grace. Yet Grace was the reason he continued to walk.