Trenches

Trenches

I stood still for a moment. No thoughts entered my mind. I just stared on ahead at the historically famous trenches in front of me. I was on French soil and visiting the trenches that served as shelter for hundreds of brave soldiers during World War One. I willed my feet to move but they would not. Perhaps they could sense the hundreds of feet that had walked the same track but would never walk again. My tour group was way ahead by the time I convinced my body to take a step.

I gingerly set foot on the top rung of the ladder leading to the bottom of the trench. Beside me was a pile of sandbags to protect the soldiers from gunfire. There was a hole through one of them to fit a gun into. It looked so unassuming, shining slightly from the sun's rays gently brushing the cobwebs. My mind began to spin. It was unbelievable how such a feeling of depression and death could linger so stubbornly for over one hundred years but there was no doubt about it, it was there. I could almost smell their tinned rations, intermingled with the nose-wrinkling door of rotting feet. Still, it did not repel me. I was where I had wanted to be all my life. There was such a sense of unworldly sacrifice, almost magical it was so incomprehensible.

I could not begin to imagine their daily life, no matter how hard I tried, I could not. I wanted to, though. I wanted to know everything; who the soldiers were, what they looked like, who their families were, their battle stories, every detail. I wanted to discover it all. The mystery intrigued me to no end. Never did a day pass without my mind wondering about those people who lived in the trenches. Now, in one of their living quarters, looking at what those men must have looked at, I felt overwhelmed. A ghostly sliver of sunlight crept its way through one the holes in a sandbag, making the slightly wet mud underfoot glisten with honour. I could see the particles of dust floating into the light, giving the trench I was in an intimidating air of superiority and knowledge. These mud walls and these particles of dust, the planks I stood on and the ladders leading to escape, they were untouchable. They demanded respect and dared anybody to discover their stories. I felt an all-consuming inferiority and suddenly wanted to scramble up a ladder and run full pace into a barbed wire barrier. Perhaps this would make me worthy enough. But I knew better. I could never relive anything those trenches had experienced. I would never deserve half the respect the men who lived day after day in fear deserved. I could do none of the things they did but I could try to understand them instead. This mystery-riddled, magically-astounding place of never-wavering courage would enthral me all my life. The thirst to discover all of the stories and unravel all of the wonder wrapped in those walls would never be quenched.