The Front line

Is it Wednesday? It might be Thursday or even Friday. Every day here is the same mindless oblivion.

I'm just trying to stay alive, trying to retain some sort of sanity, if that is at all possible. I've been on the front line for 10 days now, only 10 days but it seams like a lifetime. I remember the first day we arrived. It was all our first time on the front line so we were still cheerful. We sang songs, Bob Johnson even cracked jokes about how he wished he'd get hit so he could "get a bit of those Nurses down at the hospital".

He's dead now, shot in the chest, died within seconds, no Nurses for him.We met some of the men coming out of the trenches. They were all silent, bent over as if someone had broken them. One of them looked up at us and mumbled to himself: "Poor sods, they won't know what's hit 'em. " He was right.

Nothing can prepare you for the front line. The first thing that hit me was the stench of rotting bodies. They were everywhere, feet and hands sticking out of the trench wall. Someone had written R. I.

P on the sole of a boot. Someone else had hung his mug on a finger. I wondered who that finger belonged to, and if he would mind having a mug hung on it. You get used to it though.

The smell, the bodies, the shells. The first night I didn't sleep a wink. Now I grab a kip when ever possible. They say the rats feed off the rotting bodies.

That's why they are so fat. Even so they are really greedy. The other day Fred dropped a bit of his food and about 10 of the brutes jumped out and started fighting for it. We started betting on which one would win.

It pasted the time. Tommy says that the real enemy is the fleas. I agree with him. They're everywhere! You can pop 'em using a lighted candle, but however many you kill there are hundreds more and they itch like hell.

Someone should be coming to relieve us soon. We should have been back at the reserve trenches 4 days ago, resting. I don't want to have to stay in this place a second longer. That's the opinion with the rest of the boys too. One guy was lying on his back with his leg stuck over the top of the trench.

I asked him what he was doing, told him he might get shot. He replied that's the idea and that it was better to get shot in the leg than in the gut. Some are even whispering the word prisoner. Even being captured by the Germans would be better than this. Boy am I looking forward to getting out of this hell hole.

When we do, we get to have a bath. Never have I wanted so much to have a bath. While we do our uniforms are fumigated. That should get rid of the fleas for a while. Saturday 17th Sept We went over the top yesterday. Lost 27 men.

27 dead just like that. Gone. Dead. Forever. I knew most of them, good lads some even younger than me and I am only 19. One of them Colin, lived just down the street from me.

He was rather shy and kept himself to himself. His poor mother will be devastated. Wonder how my Mam is doing. At least she's got Alice and Meg to look after her. At about 11:00 pm we got the order to go over.I was one of the last to go.

All around me was the flash of gunfire, the screams of dying men. I didn't even get near the German's trench. It was like going through an obstacle course. Wading through dead bodies, mud and trying to get past the barbed wire.

Meanwhile the German machine guns cut us down. About half way across no mans land I fell into a shell hole. Covered in mud and blood I lay there until the attack stopped. I'm no coward but I wouldn't crawled out of that hole and continued for anything. I then had to drag myself back to our trench. Back though the dead and dying.

I couldn't stop and help any of them. Most were too far-gone anyway. Out there on no mans land it's every man for himself. Sunday 18th September Supplies are running low.

Had to boil some rain water from a shell hole, as the drinking water hasn't arrived yet. We are now down to eating one slice of bread for breakfast and hard biscuits for tea. I can tell I am getting desperate as the prospect of tinned bully beef it looking tasty. Friday 23rd September Reserve trenches Well after being on the front line apart from a few cuts and bruises I am fine. Can't say the same for others.

At least being shot is fairly quick.There are worse ways to go gas attack, 'trench fever,' foot rot and diarrhoea. Foot rot is where your foot rots away in your boot because it's so wet. If there is one thing I wouldn't want to get its foot rot. There's gangrene as well.

Sam my mate died of that. A piece of shrapnel cut his leg open. It wasn't that bad but it got infected 'cus the medical facilities are so primitive. The gangrene spread from his leg to his insides.

Well to cut a long story short he died. I only found out yesterday. The Lieutenant gave me his pack to take to the Officers to send home, because he knew we were friends.He told me that if there was anything of worth I should take myself. "Better you have it lad than the Officers. " The Lieutenant is a decent sort, he's a bit macho, die for your country and all that, but he treats us fairly and mucks in with us lads.

It's that Officers I hate. When I went up to drop off Sam's pack, it was lunchtime. Of course the Officers had food coming out of their ears, it wouldn't do for them to be hungry. I couldn't believe it but they were actually joking about the next attack. War's just a game to them. There nothing but stuck-up, toffee-nosed bullies.

War to them is all strutting and breast-beating, power and glory. They don't have to go over the top to stare death in the face. If it were up to us and the Jerry's or Fritz as we call the Germans (they call us Tommy's), we'd end this war right now. They're not a bad lot. They have families, loved ones just like us, just like Sam. Poor old Sam.

My best mate killed and what for? We gain 80m, the Germans gain 70, attack and counter-attack. One step forward, two steps back, and millions of men dieing all the time. I'd better get some sleep. Who am I kidding?I daren't close my eyes for then the images that haunt me become all too vivid. Down on the front line I have seen men ripped apart my machine gun fire, tossed about like a rag doll as the bullets rip through their flesh, and that's not the worse I've seen. I'm terrified that's going to happen to me.

That I'll become a nameless solider in a nameless grave, or left out on no-mans land to be eaten by the rats. All I want to do is survive this war and go home. Maybe get a nice job, something that has nothing to do with blood. Maybe when this war is over I'll write a book to tell everyone what it was really like.