The War Between Hope and Death

( This story is about two young boys in World War 1 fighting for the British Army. I know it's not perfect and I tried my best to make everything accurate. It is a little long I got carried away. Trigger Warning because it does discuss darker things. I hope you enjoy! )

I was a young boy, too young. My name was James. I had just had my 16th birthday when we had gotten news from father that a war had begun. My father was too old and frail to go fight for our country I knew I had to be the one to set up. The day I left my mum cried harder than I thought she could cry. As the war became more serious we all started calling it the World War. 

The air smelled of something that had rotted. The ear-pounding noises of the man-made orbs of explosions pounding into the earth’s crust. The scatter of rats and the frequent screams of men filled all of our ears every day. I woke up to the pounding yet familiar noise of explosions hitting near our trench. We had been in the trench for what seemed like years now. I lit a cigarette and walked through the trench looking for my buddy Sam. We had stuck it through with each other for 5 months now. He was a year older than me but he was always more scared than I was. He was a mommas boy who wanted to be a teacher. However, we both knew that dream was long gone now. My dream was to work alongside my father in our family-owned car company business but, I too knew this dream was long gone. Finally finding Sam I yelled at him “Sam!” he looked at me and gave me his usual cheerful smile. Even with Sams’s very cheerful smile you could look at the boy’s eyes and see the happiness had faded a long time ago. That was the reality for the majority of us. All of us tried to keep our spirits up in different ways some played card games, others prayed and some of us hung onto the small chance of going home. However, our trench had little to no hope and we all knew this even our generals regardless of how motivating they could be. We were on the frontlines. We all knew the frontlines were either a death wish or a wish to be dead if the injuries were bad enough. Sam walked over to me lighting up his cigarette. “The Germans got more supplies, James. The Americans are gonna help us Britains.” I nodded listening to him sighing. “Maybe we can get ourselves home with their help,” I responded as I looked at him. We both gave each other a grim look knowing we had false hope. We both walked through the thick mud that had accumulated in our trench to the group of guys we were assigned with. The sun would be setting soon which meant our nightshift duty was about to start. Sam and I both got assigned to be nighttime watchers which we were thankful for. As we listened to our general and the plans for the night you could hear gunshots whizzing by. There was almost always shooting however with the trenches anyone rarely got shot. 

A few hours went by as the few of us tried to stay awake. I was perched upon a ledge inside a small dugout area of the trench wall. It was raining and the small cavern gave me some protection from the elements. It was strangely quiet and pleasant, but it also meant our enemy was quiet and we didn’t know why. The only thing you could hear was the small pellets of the rain bouncing off of our metal helmets. I checked my watch knowing what time it was. Routinely every night one of us would climb up the trench wall and peer into no man’s land to see if the enemy had moved. However, this was much more dangerous than you would think. Our enemy and we included would shoot or snipe anything that moved up the top of the trenches. Unrotunely it was my turn tonight. I trudged through the mud and patted our nighttime sniper on the back letting him know I was going up soon. He nodded and gave me an empathetic look and turned to let the other boys know. I had 5 more minutes so I walked over to Sam lighting up my cig. As I exhaled smoke through my nose I sighed. “They’re quiet it hasn’t been this quiet in months. My turn to go up tonight.” He nodded looking at me and put his helmet against mine while looking at me. “I know but we got you, brother.” I sighed nodding with a little shake in my breath. I went over to the wall looking at the boys lined up waiting for me to peer over the trench. Sam patted me on the back as I set up the wooden ladder. He gave me the rusty binoculars and went to his spot to wait for me. I nodded at our sniper as I slowly went up. As I reached the top my hands started to shake and I held my breath as I ever so slightly peered up over with the binoculars already at my eyes. I squinted looking through the bioncoulars. Dead men littered the flat open field with barbed wire everywhere. Peering through all of it I saw the Germans trench before I could react a bullet sound echoed through the air. Breathing heavily I realized it had been our sniper next to me. I sighed in relief knowing he had just saved me. I quickly panned the area and saw something that we hadn’t seen before. There was a silhouette of at least a dozen of tanks in the distance and more trench walls were being built on the German side. I quickly got down and rushed to find our general to tell him about the news. Sam followed me looking concerned for he did not know why I was in such a rush. I saluted quickly to our general who was smoking a cig looking at a map. He nodded at me seeing the worry on my face. “Sir I saw at least a dozen or more tanks in the distance and they are extending their trench which means more troops.” He got up quickly and ran to find the other generals. Sam looked at me frightened “How did they get tanks there in just one day? It will take at least a week before we get more troops, James.” I nodded slowly. “I know we need help fast.”

We carried out our night shift like usual not knowing what would come in the morning.

Sam and I ended up dozing off as light started to lighten up the trench we both startled awake to the sounds of screaming from generals and the echoes of tanks in the distance. We both quickly got up not saying a word throwing on our gear and ran to our general. I could tell Sam was terrified and I too was just as scared as he was for the first time. Our general yelled out to us “Boys today we will be up entering No Mans Land we have orders to try to keep the Germans back. We will have machine guns and artillery set up back here to give you boys some cover and your job is to take out as many as you can without getting killed. If you make it close to their trench send off flares and we will have backup coming your way. Stay at your spot close to the trench until you see backup coming. As they come, help give them some cover. You have 30 minutes. Go honor the queen and your country. May God be with you all”. After hearing our orders my heart dropped into the pit of my stomach and my face paled. As we walked to our spots to get ready I couldn’t think my mind had gone blank. Coming to my senses I shakily grabbed my tin box from my bag. Grabbing the metal pen and wrinkled paper I started writing to my family. I looked at Sam and he was doing the same. I told my mum and father I would be home soon and that I had made them proud. I knew this was a lie but they needed some kind of hope and it gave me a small chance of hope for myself. I packed up my stuff threw on my dog tags and walked over to Sam. I lit a cigarette as he finished his letter. “We got this okay brother. This is our duty. If I go down don’t come after me hide behind the small ledge until backup comes okay.” Sam shook his head. “I’m not a coward and we’re gonna be okay. You will make it James. After this, we will be back home in England.” I knew I couldn’t say much more and I gave him a small smile and nodded. I patted him on the back and went over to the small spot where we would get out of the trench. The artillery had already begun spraying to help us get some cover. I hugged Sam and smiled. As I heard the general yell we all started climbing up out of the trench as fast as we could. Bullets whizzed past us some men had already fallen. We all sprinted as fast as we could. I could see Sam a short distance behind me I yelled at him to hurry. We fell onto our stomachs to get through the mass amounts of barbed wire. The sharp metal sliced through my face. I winced before grabbing my rifle and firing off shots towards the German’s trench. Crawling while pausing to shoot here and there I finally got through the wire. I sprinted towards a small hill and laid down. I set up my rifle to help give the other boys some cover. I heard a German tank shoot off, and I saw it hit impact on at least a dozen boys. I searched for Sam frantically and then I saw him still crawling through more of the barbed wire I smiled in relief. I winced as I heard screams from the barbed wire area and looked away. I got up and started to shoot my rifle to try to give the other boys cover. Noticing Sam still was not here I looked back and saw that he got snagged on the wire. I set down my rifle and quickly ran to him ducking as I heard bullets whiz by. I saw three of the boys make it to the small hill and put my attention back to Sam. I kneeled by him grabbing out my knife quickly trying to cut him loose. I felt a piercing pain in my shoulder and I winced trying to ignore it. Finally cutting Sam free I grabbed his shoulder yanking him up. He had a lot of bleeding from the wries grabbing at his skin but I knew we didn’t have time to worry about it. We sprinted towards the small hill quickly as we came up to the other boys I fell to my knees feeling another piercing pain in my chest. Sam’s eyes widened he pulled me closer to the hill quickly and unbuttoned my jacket. He saw crimson red soaking my underclothes. I coughed feeling my stomach go cold knowing what had happened. I mustered up the best smile I could and grabbed his arm as he frantically tried to stop the blood flow. “Couldn’t have wished for a better best friend during all of this.” He ignored me as applied pressure. As my hands trembled I grabbed the letter I had and took off my dog tags and handed them to Sam. He looked at me with watery eyes shaking his head. “No no no James I don’t need these just lay down and breathe okay.” I grabbed Sams hand that was applying pressure and looked at him in his frantic crying eyes. “It’s okay Sam. You made it. The backup will come. Let me go. Make it out of here and give these to my mum. This is our job remember. The Germans got what’s coming to them.” I squeezed his hand weakly. “Love you, my brother.” He wiped away a tear while squeezing my hand back and nodded. “Love you too brother.” I closed my eyes as the world faded.