The Seduction of Dolly

set in 1017-20 about group of friends

This is a small excerpt from The Seduction of Dolly, my next book. Other books already published are Pandora's Legacy and The People movers Both available on Amazon.

 

It had been four months of hell. An order to advance, retreat, pick up the dead, go on, stop, bunker down, and the worse of all was the periodic silence, eerie unsettling silence. The routine of eat and sleep when and how you can was now ingrained in Everett’s psyche. He was huddled at the far end of the bunker that was comparatively well equipped. There was some shelter and he had just had his first warm meal in a week. Everett was cold, so very, very cold. It had rained none stop for days and his army issue was not meant for these conditions. There was a rudimentary shelter he shared with twenty other men, but no one spoke much, everyone was too exhausted and traumatized.

 

The ‘trench war,’ as it was called later, was the result of both sides digging in to defend their hard won ground. Whenever the enemy got close enough to aim a hand grenade the ensuing mayhem resulted in more dead and maimed comrades.

“Better that than the poison gas,” reasoned Stan as he tried to reassure a frightened Everett, after such an attack. The barbed wire stood firm and impenetrable on the rise of the hill. It stood out, a fortress of death and doom, specifically at sunset, when the golden-orange hues lent a surreal veil to the whole horrific affair.

 

Everett removed his boots to try and dry out his wet socks. He looked at them, darned heels already fraying. His feet were wrinkled blue with cold and they badly needed a wash. He had given up trying to tend to his blisters and they were now hardened and callused. He put his socks on the butt of his rifle and removed his trench coat and pullover. His balaclava fell into the mud and he shook it and hung it with his socks. The bucket of cold water he was given was a luxury after weeks of not undressing and he relished the cold refreshing wash. Somehow he managed to shave his adolescent fuzz that one day would be a beard. Finally he soaked his feet and dried them on a small cloth he had been given with the bucket of water. He felt refreshed and slept fitfully for a blessed four hours.

 

His unit had dug themselves in and for the last two days they were awaiting orders. No news had reached him about his mother’s death, but he felt that something was terribly wrong at home. He sat in his bunker weeping silently missing his family. He saw grown men occasionally doing the same and no one felt they were lesser men because of it. He thought of Dolly and knew that she was ending her schools days soon, “She is the scholar,” he mused, “and I am the doer.” He daydreamed about the antics they got up to as children. He thought about the Abbey ruins where they spent carefree days of pretending to be soldiers, now he was doing it for real. Real was nothing like the imagination, he thought ruefully.  He smiled despite everything, and marveled at the joyfulness of youth. Dolly always covered for his misdemeanors and they loved each other unconditionally. He missed her terribly.