by William Hardy (March 2026)
Abandoned French Billet, near the France-Belgium Border—9 April, 1915.
ARTHUR SMITH awoke to heavy bombardments not fifty yards away, sending a shower of leaves to the ground from the old oak tree. Exhausted from a lack of restful sleep, he jumped to his feet, blinking against the heavy ash and soot generated by the many explosions sent by the Hun.
With a hand pressed against his chest, he made a beeline towards the nearby billet, dodging the numerous dugouts around the farmer’s field. There was no relief. Kicking the door open, hands shaking, he hid inside the battered kitchen and dumped his haversack against a row of cupboards. There was no chance of rest now, but it was a hell of a lot safer than being stuck out in the mud.
The bombardments went on for half an hour before they ceased. He decided it was time for some nourishment. He bent over to grab his bully beef and a hunk of bread from a torn pocket in his bag, hoping the consumption of food would ease his mind away from the dire circumstances. He sat up straighter to remove his helmet, chewing on the beef as slowly as possible. Arthur was three quarters of a mile from the front, and for the first time, noticed his hearing had returned as he stuck a finger into his ear, twisting it around to rid it of wax.
As he sat there—chewing on his beef sandwich, he realised a most stark, and singular truth that could possibly even defeat the hardiest of men—no one was coming to save him.
Meanwhile, he got to his feet once again, staggering into a beautifully furnished front room, and approached Montague and Frost from his regiment still alive and kicking. ‘Think we should go yet?’
Montague sat playing the harmonica, with Frost wrapping himself in a newly-issued sheep skin coat, dismissing the notion with a swift shake of his head, understandably so, to leave.
Arthur screwed up his bleary bloodshot eyes in an attempt to clear his vision, but he irritated them further by rubbing them hard, mixing in thick particles of ash and dust. He decided the best he could do was to try and get some long-deserved rest, and avoid death one more day, but not before cleaning his hands, and supping on bread. Preferably in a space far from Montague’s dreadful tune.
***
The following day brought bombardments, albeit further off, and a chance to explore. He, too, was grateful for that. Beyond the farmer’s field was a large village, or rather, the remains of one that had seen better days. And all about, the din was awful. But of course, gunfire from the British was simply terrific—a fine chorus of sounds so bleak, so incessant and so constantly pushing Arthur to keep his troubled eyes peeled for trouble lurking around the corner.
The church spire rose like a lone mast in a desolate sea, surrounded by rubble. It seemed the rats might fare better than the civilians, if there were any to count. Worse, the number of Boche buried here was more than the British. Some, terribly so, were half-buried, with arms and legs sticking out for the world to see. Others were dumped on top, rotted, seeping blood from one exposed wound to another, forming a cesspit of splattered human remains.
Arthur had no doubt this excursion made the trenches seem a joyous place to live all year round, but only just. Immediately so, he went for his canteen, sipping the cool, sweet liquid to ease his mind, but the stench of flesh melted his pleasure away, giving the rum a foul aftertaste.
The church doors were gone, off their hinges and without doubt, shelled to damnation. Hell, even counter strikes from the Western Front had effectively cast this village into a monument, struck off from every source of pleasure it once held for the original inhabitants, perhaps forever. No doubt they were buried, but what is worse, to be dead or forgotten? Even their enemy housed among them—as was clear from the graveyard out yonder.
Arthur entered and pulled up a pew, stepping over rubble as he went, but tried, infallibly to push another away from the aisle to form a space for his gear. He sat for a while, again, very grateful for the peace, but much could be said against the state of the church instead. And among that, if a God did exist, might there be a trial for penance when all is lost? He wasn’t so sure. Arthur had killed, albeit, not proudly so, but the thoughts multiplied into one terrible, throbbing realisation, that originally blanketed his fear when he was ordered, every time to pull the trigger of his Lee-Enfield. Was he really doing the Lord’s work? For King and Country?
Not even close. He, too, wanted only one thing, but he could no longer tell if this divide stemmed from his old life, or this blurred, but utterly disjointed world that crossed lines and forced him to become a rolling death machine at just twenty years old. Worse, he’d lost his right to ever act as a human being again. But he knew that. His head swam, but no tears came out. He never wanted Kitty to see him like this. Not ever.
Meanwhile, he took his pencil and a roll of paper out of his haversack, and started writing.
British Reserve Trench—22 April, 1915.
The nearest implement to a knife and fork that Arthur had was a pair of nail scissors. Most, if not all the other fellows were charged with the same misfortune, even Montague, who’d now lost his harmonica was as miserable as the day had begun in the mess tent. Suffice it to say, no-one could eat much without grabbing hunks of meat out of the others dish, as disrupted communication lines had left them high and dry.
In the evening, Arthur, who lit his last Woodbine, treasured his privacy more than ever, having often thought about his time in the church, as depressing and hopeless as it was, freed him from the shackles of war. Even for just a moment. But, as always, correspondence from the front had all but changed that in the blink of an eye.
‘Lance Corporal Smith!’
‘Sarge?’ Arthur said, standing to attention.
‘Pack your kit. You’re going over.’
Arthur, half-asleep, looked, but said nothing. The sergeant walked past him, and turned his attention to the other fellows, who were also packing up in haste. About them jostled a dispirited, disordered rabble of infantry that, not hours before, were incapable of eating without their hands, had been told to head into No Man’s Land.
And so, the 5th Grenadier Company were dispatched to Ypres.
No Man’s Land—23 April, 1915.
Lance Corporal Frost had only gone half the required distance over the top when a shell fell thirty feet away from Arthur, who fell violently onto his back, narrowly missing a loose coil of barbed wire. For one blistering minute, all was quiet. Albeit the force of the concussion pitched half a dozen men back on the ground, toppling like dominoes. Arthur, along with three others dragged L.C. Frost back down, taking immediate stock of his wounds, but there was no time for guesswork. He was dead. His arm had come jaggedly off, and he’d lost both of his legs. However, it wasn’t just him—and there was no escape route in sight for Arthur to avoid the scene in front.
Limbs, too many to count, were scattered in pieces, disjointed, and dismembered above and below sandbags; jutting out in the mud like fence posts—with torn sleeves creating the illusion of upside down flags. Men, who he once knew as brothers, were cast aside in the field of battle—caught in barbed wire, ribs smashed by distant snipers, skulls cracked open, guts in pieces, that brought them further away from ending this dreadful conflict.
The full horror and disturbing nature of the war had brought about the suffering of a hundred more men less than two hours later, and Arthur, who could all but keep a brave face and remain diligent, had started breaking into quiet tears in a place that had muffled his hearing and blurred his vision. But, inevitably so, it was time to regroup and advance above the ground that was littered with the remains of everyone who would suffer back home.
There was enough work here to see them all off until the Hun had advanced far enough into their trench, but there were many wounded men above ground, and too little time for Arthur and the rest of his regiment to haul them down behind lines, and even so, the numerous bombardments had swelled the landscape into a barren, ash-grey wasteland full of craters; all varying in diameter large enough to drop and die, as was clear from the rotten horse carcasses lodged around the perimeter. No man dared move beyond what was necessary.
Oh, how Arthur longed to return to that billet, as his hands turned clammy and an uneasy sensation in his stomach grew even more potent against the backdrop of blood and bones. And as a response, he threw up, which splashed violently over the dead, in a pool of green matter; accompanied by pounding dizziness that, after a while, knocked him out.
***
The momentum ebbed as Arthur was taken out of action, after many days of much-needed rest. Army Command was negligent in dealing with the troops, as by day, the number of casualties overwhelmed the medics, although on a positive note, the food supplies had been restocked during his blackout, along with a box sent from Walmer, England, personally to Arthur.
He would soon learn if, by chance, mother had sent another one to his brother in the 2nd Devons, but he hadn’t been in contact since before Neuve Chappell, and he feared that many in his regiment would not make contact—albeit if that was the case, then enough time had passed that he either, went missing or died by the hands of some Kraut. Worse, he didn’t know what to make of it after the fact, but he knew there was no use to dwell on it. He wasn’t the only poor sod, and he wouldn’t be the last.
Arthur sat upright and opened the box. On top was a handwritten note: My Dear Arthur, it read in the centre of the creamy, white paper. And, for the first time since he sat unaccompanied and alone in the middle of that abandoned church, he’d found himself weeping at the sight of her cursive, but sharp handwriting. Kitty.
She’d sent him chocolate, biscuits in a proper tin, and photos of his mother, who stood cradling his daughter’s head in her arms. Nothing of merit to anyone out in the trenches, but there, among the goods and the family photos was a line of people who wanted him to come home, who perhaps knew, deep down he might never see them again. His nine-month year old daughter was his legacy, and well, as fortunate as he was to hear from them, his relief was nearly up, as his bed was sorely needed. After pocketing the photos, he caught sight of Montague lying lifeless on a stretcher ahead of him. And that was that.
Arthur, who traced a finger over Kitty’s locks against the print, had no doubt that he would find himself alone, unburied in the centre of it all, but worse, that no one would be there to see him off and he would be lost amidst the mud and iron.
Table of Contents
William Hardy is a Creative Writing student from Cambridge, England. His work has appeared in The National Centre for Writing’s A Life Written Anthology, and he draws inspiration from moments that shaped his path toward storytelling.
Follow NER on Twitter @NERIconoclast
