The Last Soldier On The Western Front

War Novel Based On WW1

7th September 1914:

Dear Diary,

I have just been shipped out to the Western Front today after finishing my terrible and feet aching 6 week training, and the experience is not for the faint hearted. My name is Jonathan Barrett I am 22 years of age, and am part of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps in the British Expeditionary Force just like my father before me. The roar of Artillery could be heard miles away from the trenches even in the train carriage, many men were clutching photos of their mothers thinking that they would never come back, many were right. The Distance screams of pain, terror and the thundering noise of German machine guns split our ear drums from end to end as we unloaded off the train. I shook the driver's hand and he whispered which I could’ve sworn what he said was good luck, that voice haunted me day in day out. We marched through the support trench, the mud coming up to our ankles as we powered on through. Every so often I would hear a screech from one of the soldiers and turn back to see a giant rat scuttle past, sometimes chewing on what I really hoped weren’t mangled limbs. We past men, injured men, allied soldiers who all had that same dauntless look on their faces, the one that we all knew meant we probably weren’t going to come back. When we got to the front line trenches our fates were sealed, we were now soldiers, soldiers fighting for us and the very men who wouldn’t make it home to see their mothers gleeful face again. I looked at my best friend standing beside me, he had the shimmering look of terror in his eyes, as soon as we heard the Expeditionary Sergeant talking about the Germans trying to push through the river Marne. We knew why we’d been shipped out to this hell on earth, our one and only objective was to hold back the advancing German Empire and to Ensure the French were to keep this land. We were instructed to get some shuteye as we climbed down into the Bunker. We knew that, that whistle would be sounding at 0:100 hours. I clutched my rifle and said to myself. The Battle Of The Marne has began.

8th September 1914

The Whistle sounded at the time I predicted, there was no time to grab anything as we climbed out of the bunker, my heart was pounding and even in minus 2 degrees sweat trickled down my forehead. When we got to the Trench wall I looked at my friend with a smile and he did the same, then our faces turned cold. It was time. We clutched our rifles so hard that our hands turned red, we screamed at the top of our lungs as we bundled over the mud strucen wall. As soon as we got over, it was a massacre, piercing hot shrapnel, mud and bodies flew everywhere, we were lucky we weren’t killed like the poor sods back there. The noise and power of German Howitzers and Artillery guns shook the ground like an earthquake. When we got near to the German Trench our courage turned to fear as we looked around, out of 60 men only 10 were left. I prayed that I wouldn’t be the next. After another 10 foot of running we got to the barbed wire. Sharp as nails, it’s a nasty thing to get hooked onto. We dived onto our stomachs in the mud and my friend next to me got the jagged cutters from the right side of his pocket, he handed them to me and said for me to cut. As soon as I started moving the wire about to get a good snag of the barbs, the hail of gunfire grew ever more ferocious ; sparks, rocks and mud flew everywhere beside me and a few bullets wisped past my ears pinging as their velocity was shattered after hitting the mud. As soon as we managed to cut an opening we started crawling forwards, our heads down and faces in the mud all we could hear was the terror of war ; 360 degrees around me all that could be heard was the screams of pain and the boom of bullets and shrapnel landing not too far away, yet again we prayed it wasn’t us. We looked up to see where we ended up, and we could not believe the sight we saw it was sickening, everywhere we looked there were dead bodies and mangled limbs strewn around the place and the most disturbing was men who we had fought beside not too long ago were now limped over the Germans Secondary Barbed Wire with blood stained Uniforms. This filled us both with major anger. So what we were about to do may of been stupid but we ended up doing it anyway. We both pulled the pin outta’ our bombs and threw them against the now body filled Wire, we braced for the after shock and when we saw the gaping hole. We Charged. We charged firing every piece of weaponry we had into that trench including gas grenades. In no more than a few seconds we had are masks on and were now advancing through the German Trenches. In the ruckus of the fighting I saw something come towards me, it was large and obviously smouldering, the last thing I saw that day was a sky full of black smoke.

11th September 1914

I awoke with a moan, my eyes still adjusting to the light. When they were fully opened I was extremely confused, I was laying on some sort of linen sheet obviously soft. I listened for a moment but it was not the British I heard ; in fact I heard the ruckus of German soldiers, I convulsed my body in terror and screamed for help. A few moments later a man ran into the room with his finger firmly placed over his lips, he was not much older than I was, he had a similar build blue eyes and brown scruffy hair. The soldier saw I had a timid look on my face and explained to me that he had saved me after being hit by a piece of shell and that he had managed to sneak me into one of the Germans secret bunkers ; The thing I was extremely confused about was the smell, after a few days of fighting you get used to the smell of dead bodies and decaying objects, but here there was nothing. No smell, no noise of gunfire, nothing. I explained to him about my friend and if he had seen him, after a long stifled breath he told me what happened in his own words.

Account Of The German Soldier- After being engulfed in a cloud of gas the air was thick and the screams of pain and suffering erupted around me, I saw two British soldiers jump down into my trench consequently causing some of the trench to collapse, they had their guns poised and I could see their bodies shake with anger, it was obvious that they would kill anyone in sight. During this time period I was the only one conscious, many of my comrades were either dead or sprawled out in odd places in the mud. I attempted to hide and I stifled my breath as they walked past, my mouth now full of dirt. If not 10 feet away I saw a piece of debris smouldering and flying towards one of the soldiers, obviously looking elsewhere I opened my mouth to warn him but it was too late, with a loud crash he fell to the floor. I was about to go and help the obviously second distressed man but as soon as I started walking towards him my eyes opened wide with terror, as I heard the sound of one of our machine gunners thundering ammunition through the belt fed turret ; *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* was all I heard as the poor man fell to the floor, a bullet passing straight through his skull and out the otherside. Knowing he was definitely dead I went to help the other man, I almost got shot from my own comrade pulling the man aside and taking him into a crumbling bunker roughly 5 metres away.

After hearing the man's story I thanked him for his heroic deed however after hearing the fate of my friend, I felt tears flow down my red flushed cheeks. I felt like I should’ve been the one to be shot not him. He was my best friend whom I’d never forget. After regaining my composure I asked him If and when I could leave, he said to me that their army had already been pushed back 25 km and another wave of attack was coming the next day at around 0:400 hours. He said to me that if i'm careful I would be able to sneak back through No Man's Land and join the attack. After that he left and came back with my uniform ; it was splattered with thick gloop, blood and creases went from top to bottom on the Olive Green top. I then asked him for my rifle, he then came back with it ; however I was shocked at how dirty my Lee Enfield was ; it was completely caked in brown sludge and the wooden grip was starting to decay. The soldier even said he tried to clean it and it was the best he could do ; I thanked him any how and closed my eyes and tried to go back to sleep as I knew the next day was not going to be easy. However minutes later a lump of mud landed onto my face, I chuckled to myself and I remembered the life here wouldn’t be a luxury, I brushed it off and went back to sleep on the woolen bed.

12th September 1914
I was awoken to the sound of gunfire, and the repetitive bang of German Machine Guns, I propped myself out of bed and checked my seams for mites’, due to the fact I was In a German Trench I decided to go out of the emergency tunnel leading straight out into No Man’s Land. The small tunnel was cramped and musty. Every so often a glisten of light would appear in the distance from a dimly lit wax candle. The walls were reinforced with concrete, however that didn’t stop the rats rummaging up and down, or the British attempting to breach it with artillery. Large cobwebs hanged down, which I ended up blowing out my way. My clothes were wet and my face was muddy. I honestly hated this place. As I approached nearer and nearer the trap door, the ferocity of the gun fire grew ever louder, I stepped cautiously to the hatch and slowly opened it. A gust of cold air hit me and I shivered ; As I climbed up the rusty ladder a German soldier was crouched down unaware of my presence, I unfastened my bayonet, creeped slowly up behind him and stabbed him straight through the heart and laid him to rest. As I slowly crept up the slippery crater I had my rifle raised, ready for an enemy attack. However when I got to the top I did not bother to look up in the sky, because the last thing I remembered was a shell bombarded heading straight in my direction. At that moment I remembered one thing my good old friend Rupert Brooke (a poet) said to me to recite “If I should die,think only this of me ; That there’s some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.