The Trench

The trench sat nearly 20 yards forward of the main British trench, and a mere 50 yards from the Germans to the east. Somewhere between there and the German lines there had been another trench, but it had been pounded by artillery until it was just a deep furrow in No-Man's Land. The first time the British forces took the trench, they were left with the unpleasant dilemma of what to do with the Germans left behind. Three of them were easy, being sent back to the main British line for medical care and interrogation. It was the others that were a problem. A full dozen dead Huns littered the trench, and something had to be done. Sargeant Angus McClary had considered it for nearly an hour when the solution dawned on him. A two-year veteran of trench warfare, digging had become second nature. He directed his men to dig horizontal graves into the side of the trench that faced the Bosch, and they placed the dead in these grim berths much as they would sleep in a railroad car on holiday. McClary himself managed to find the identity of most of them, and carefully inked their names and whatever information he could on small blocks of wood that he imbedded into the soil of each grave as they filled it in. Those few he had no information for were merely marked as "German Soldier, March 1918 RIP." Eleven days later, the Germans reclaimed the trench. Pulling back with the survivors, a small piece of McClary's mind wondered if anyone would even take note of what had happened.

Nine days after that, they once again stood in the trench watching the retreating Huns cross No-Man's Land after a bloody pitched battle. McClary set out his sentries, and as he was organizing their duty schedule, he noticed the boards that remained on the German side of the trench. Only three of their dead had been removed, leaving the four unknowns and five of their named brothers in state. As he finished squaring his troops away, he sat down wearily on the forward side of the trench, letting his head fall back against the packed soil. There, on the British side of the trench, were seven boards imbedded in the wall of the trench. Five bore names he knew all too well as men he'd lost when they'd been rooted out by the German barrage and the following assault by their troops. The other two were marked simply, "British Soldier, April 1918 RIP."

The trench changed hands numerous times, and each time the walls of the trench received the bodies of the fallen. Angus McClary had become innured to sleeping with the dead in short order as the troops dug out their own berths among the graves.

Life fell into a routine. The day's work consisted of attacking or defending, or sometimes just sitting and listening to the shells criss-cross the skies as the two armies traded artillery insults across the hell they had both created. It was common enough to hear one or more men praying out loud not to hear the officers' whistles that would mean it was time to go over the top again. Meals and lives were shared among the living and the dead there in the trench.

The rhythm soon became predictable. Sometimes, the barrage from the German guns would become frantic, with the bursting shells landing so often that the sound of the guns that fired them would be obscured. When that happened, McClary would wake and quietly check his equipment: The long bayonet he kept sharpened to a near razor's edge sat next to the entrenching tool that bore an edge just as sharp. His trench knife, with a handle that circled his fingers like brass knuckles, rode on his belt right next to the extra ammunition for his Enfield. He knew what followed the silence of those guns as surely as every other man in the trench did, and he would be ready for the green-clad Huns as they swarmed across No-Man's Land when the barrage lifted.

Other times, it would be the British guns that sped up. He would follow the same routine, but on those mornings he would slide out of his shelf a little sooner, hoping to get some tea before they scrambled over the top to do battle in the land of the Huns. It had all become like factory work, the only exception being that desperation and death were their only products.

One morning, the barrage had rolled along throughout the night without changing tempo, and they had all slept soundly, rocked on the now rhythmic boughs of the violent exchange. Angus awakened in the November dawn by a sudden and complete silence. McClary wondered for a moment if a shell had found him in the dark and he was no longer to be counted among the living. As he watched his exhaled breath steaming in the cold, he counted the blessing and rolled out. There wasn't a sound to be heard as he slid out from under the blanket to see his comrades sitting deathly silent in the trench. The terror in their eyes washed over him like a wave. The hair rose on the back of his neck as he pulled his rifle out. Affixing his bayonet as he stepped up to the firing shelf, he carefully raised his helmeted head just high enough to see the expanse of the field before him.

No-Man's Land stretched before him, the gray-black muck scarred and churned by thousands of shells over the last several months. The mud itself seemed to smoke in the early morning light that filtered down through the pervasive clouds that were now a part of this place. Everywhere he looked were shattered barbed wire entanglements, many decorated with the remains of men who had never made it home to their lines. The scattered mud and morning frost made it impossible to recognize the dead as friend or foe anymore. He reckoned that was just as well. It no longer mattered who they were. Now, they were brothers of the field, their disputes forever settled. Time stood still as they all listened, waiting for the sounds of the Bosch leaving the trenches to cross No-Man's Land once again.

The silence stretched out, and they began cooking and maintaining their equipment silently until a tall fellow in a Captain's uniform quietly made his way down the trench, speaking softly as he came. McClary watched as men sat down like unstrung puppets in his wake. As the Captain came to the shelf, he looked up and their eyes locked. The Captain broke the silence, "Sargeant McClary, I presume?" Angus nodded slowly, and the Captain went on, "Please get your men to clean their equipment as best they can and prepare to move out of this God-forsaken place. The war is won." With that, the Captain pulled a piece of paper from his jacket pocket, checking off a line on his list, and resumed his walk quietly down the trench towards the next brigade down the line.

Everyone was dumb-struck as they turned their gaze towards McClary. He watched the Captain as he walked away and made a turn in the trench, passing out of sight. He felt a nudge from the Corporal next to him on the shelf, and turned to him. The Corporal whispered, "Who was that?" Angus could only shake his head for a moment, then he simply said, "Doesn't matter, does it?" Angus took his entrenching tool and slashed it hard against the side of the trench, burying it so deep only the handle remained exposed. With that, he pulled down the blanket from his bunking spot and began to carefully fold it to fit his pack, oblivious to the men around him. There would be time for niceties later. For now, he would be satisfied to be anywhere but the trench. Wordlessly, everyone began to stow their gear and scrape the mud from their uniforms.

As they were nearly finished, Angus noted a new stillness in the trench and straightened. For awhile they all stood tranfixed as they stood in silence, staring at the markers that seemed to be everywhere on the walls of the trench. The quick and the dead mingled together one last time, before the living moved out for home.

In 1938, McClary stood in France in a field of gently rolling ground. He stared at the 58 low flat marble stones that bore the names of the fallen in two long rows, just as their comrades and enemies alike had interred them all. The clouds of a new war were gathering, and he knew he would not come back here to witness the folly of this war.

As he turned to walk away, he thought it fitting they had all been left there, brothers of the field, to share the only peace that was theirs forever.