301210: The Adversary
Through ordnance binoculars the RE officer observed in horror as the troops abandoned the cover of their trenches, Carnoy now far behind them, and began marching across No Man's Land, promptly falling over one at a time, sometimes two, to the hail of oncoming Boche machine gun fire. In the background hung the ruins of Montauban, the morning fog painting it in ghostly strokes; by this way the officer had ascertained the most concentrated source of gunfire, its location long rendered mute had everything gone as planned.
But everything hadn't. Nothing had, for that matter, and the officer's mouth went dry as he saw the men from the 18th Eastern Division now occupy the very same area where the mine had been laid, right beneath the German position of gunfire, even as their cries went up into the morning, hot lead finding new homes. It was the same mine that had not been set off. The details afforded by the binoculars were soon clouded by a torrent of thoughts that swam through his head, a reckless game of odds as apt as the name the place had been designated: Kasino Point. Hands moving towards the plunger he heard a voice not of his own, asking, "Gambling man, are you?" And then the officer fired the mine.
***
Private Johnson laid in the mud, so accustomed now to the interminable sound of gun fire that he had to remind himself not to get up. He wouldn't have been able to otherwise, the sting in his left thigh reminding him of how he had arrived at his present predicament. Except he didn't know the why, why his company had been attacked when they had been told it was impossible for anything to survive a week's worth of shelling, why th stretcher-bearers had not found him yet, why his pal Keith Moore, known simply as 'Kit' who was always good with a fiddle had his face now buried in the mud, a stone's throw from where Johnson laid. And why this was all happening in the first place.
Feeling the string of expletives rising to his mouth and all but ready to commence a delivery that would start at the very top, with Lord Kitchener, god rest his soul, before moving his way down, a new sound then intruded upon the monotony of gun fire, one that Johnson, who did not notice the fanciful way in which he had begun to think of the war and his present situation, felt more than heard.
The ground shook, and turning his head the private witnessed in time a fountain of earth rise up into the sky, its entrance sweeping aside the sound of any further offensive, shockwaves breaking through the ground, a split second's notice before movement returned to the world and earth rained down upon the dead and dying. Infantrymen were thrownfrom where they stood, their final thoughts that an enemy mine had caught them, impossible to be one of their own, while on the Western front line the gamble payed off and Kasino Point was successfully neutralized.
Except that wasn't how Johnson had seen it. After the roar of the explosion the fountain of earth had, instead of falling back to No Man's Land, taken on a shape he could not quite make out at first, and he rolled over onto his side to provide himself with a clearer view, the earth having now developed was looked like long, sinewy, arm-like appendages. An anger took over him when he saw the highest point of the column take on a face that he knew, but never expected to see here in the land that admitted only men, though had named itself otherwise.
"Go back!" The spit had gathered at his lips, and before he knew it Private Johnson had risen to his feet, one side of his leg drenched in a mix of mud and his own blood, that continued to gush from a open wound on his thigh, his head suddenly light from the change in position and the three pints that he had already lost. He wouldn't be stopped, and instead repeated himself, this time louder than before.
"There isn't a place here for you!"
The thing had a fully developed by now, Johnson recognizing the cherry wood pipe held in one hand, the permanent frown between thin eyebrows that he had come to know over the years as a sign of the disappointment this man had always seen in him, a mix of bile rising in his throat while the life continued to drain out of him, this time not only from his leg, but from his arm and his belly.
"I hate-!"
A German shell made its way through one side of his temple then out the other, finding its mark finally, the collection of body parts instantly going limp, marionette cut of allits strings, collapsing among a bed of corpses still warm with the untold hopes and emotions of a whole generation.
Private Johnson died, hating.
***
Fifteen kilometres away the same display had drawn the attention of another private caught between the rain of enemy shells and the attempts of his own battalion to cover the advance of the British infantry. Sheltered within the crater from where a mine had been set off minutes before the order to march had been given, and thus securing a strategic location, his uniform now stained white chalk Norton knew that he was alone in his observation. Faintly he made out the shape of the thing in the distance, and knew its appearance to be a reflection of the observer's own prejudice. For all observers that is, except for him.
He argued that the distance made it impossible to tell, but even then he knew with a certainly wholly unreasonable that he could make out a few chilling details. The grin, for one. The utter abandon in to which the thing threw itself into its role, and the obvious fact the it was moving towards the crater Norton and a handful of infantrymen now occupied.
The circumstance surrounding his existence coming back to him, even though he still but managed a hazy stab at how he had ended up *here*, sensing the definite destination of the thing Norton heard his voice speak, travelling no further than from where he stood.
"Am I supposed to see this?"
Too late then, to notice the scream of the soldier next to him, a warning not afforded to Private Johnson fifteen kilometres away, but the results all the same, and Norton turned over to see the sky above him, a small cloud of white chalk bursting around him, but not before a familiar sensation of darkness swept through.
But everything hadn't. Nothing had, for that matter, and the officer's mouth went dry as he saw the men from the 18th Eastern Division now occupy the very same area where the mine had been laid, right beneath the German position of gunfire, even as their cries went up into the morning, hot lead finding new homes. It was the same mine that had not been set off. The details afforded by the binoculars were soon clouded by a torrent of thoughts that swam through his head, a reckless game of odds as apt as the name the place had been designated: Kasino Point. Hands moving towards the plunger he heard a voice not of his own, asking, "Gambling man, are you?" And then the officer fired the mine.
***
Private Johnson laid in the mud, so accustomed now to the interminable sound of gun fire that he had to remind himself not to get up. He wouldn't have been able to otherwise, the sting in his left thigh reminding him of how he had arrived at his present predicament. Except he didn't know the why, why his company had been attacked when they had been told it was impossible for anything to survive a week's worth of shelling, why th stretcher-bearers had not found him yet, why his pal Keith Moore, known simply as 'Kit' who was always good with a fiddle had his face now buried in the mud, a stone's throw from where Johnson laid. And why this was all happening in the first place.
Feeling the string of expletives rising to his mouth and all but ready to commence a delivery that would start at the very top, with Lord Kitchener, god rest his soul, before moving his way down, a new sound then intruded upon the monotony of gun fire, one that Johnson, who did not notice the fanciful way in which he had begun to think of the war and his present situation, felt more than heard.
The ground shook, and turning his head the private witnessed in time a fountain of earth rise up into the sky, its entrance sweeping aside the sound of any further offensive, shockwaves breaking through the ground, a split second's notice before movement returned to the world and earth rained down upon the dead and dying. Infantrymen were thrownfrom where they stood, their final thoughts that an enemy mine had caught them, impossible to be one of their own, while on the Western front line the gamble payed off and Kasino Point was successfully neutralized.
Except that wasn't how Johnson had seen it. After the roar of the explosion the fountain of earth had, instead of falling back to No Man's Land, taken on a shape he could not quite make out at first, and he rolled over onto his side to provide himself with a clearer view, the earth having now developed was looked like long, sinewy, arm-like appendages. An anger took over him when he saw the highest point of the column take on a face that he knew, but never expected to see here in the land that admitted only men, though had named itself otherwise.
"Go back!" The spit had gathered at his lips, and before he knew it Private Johnson had risen to his feet, one side of his leg drenched in a mix of mud and his own blood, that continued to gush from a open wound on his thigh, his head suddenly light from the change in position and the three pints that he had already lost. He wouldn't be stopped, and instead repeated himself, this time louder than before.
"There isn't a place here for you!"
The thing had a fully developed by now, Johnson recognizing the cherry wood pipe held in one hand, the permanent frown between thin eyebrows that he had come to know over the years as a sign of the disappointment this man had always seen in him, a mix of bile rising in his throat while the life continued to drain out of him, this time not only from his leg, but from his arm and his belly.
"I hate-!"
A German shell made its way through one side of his temple then out the other, finding its mark finally, the collection of body parts instantly going limp, marionette cut of allits strings, collapsing among a bed of corpses still warm with the untold hopes and emotions of a whole generation.
Private Johnson died, hating.
***
Fifteen kilometres away the same display had drawn the attention of another private caught between the rain of enemy shells and the attempts of his own battalion to cover the advance of the British infantry. Sheltered within the crater from where a mine had been set off minutes before the order to march had been given, and thus securing a strategic location, his uniform now stained white chalk Norton knew that he was alone in his observation. Faintly he made out the shape of the thing in the distance, and knew its appearance to be a reflection of the observer's own prejudice. For all observers that is, except for him.
He argued that the distance made it impossible to tell, but even then he knew with a certainly wholly unreasonable that he could make out a few chilling details. The grin, for one. The utter abandon in to which the thing threw itself into its role, and the obvious fact the it was moving towards the crater Norton and a handful of infantrymen now occupied.
The circumstance surrounding his existence coming back to him, even though he still but managed a hazy stab at how he had ended up *here*, sensing the definite destination of the thing Norton heard his voice speak, travelling no further than from where he stood.
"Am I supposed to see this?"
Too late then, to notice the scream of the soldier next to him, a warning not afforded to Private Johnson fifteen kilometres away, but the results all the same, and Norton turned over to see the sky above him, a small cloud of white chalk bursting around him, but not before a familiar sensation of darkness swept through.