Around midday of the third day, Me and Adrian were sitting on one of the outcrops in the trench line. We weren't really doing much, just sitting trying to pass time. We were playing a game, we would throw shell casings into an abandoned boot that was across the trench. That is what passed for entertainment on the firing line.
After a couple of minutes of playing our herrowing game. I looked up at the sky, and saw a bird flying over, to the reserve lines. It was a red bird, I could not make out what kind but the bird was flying in a sea of blue.
Not a single cloud in sight. It seemed, almost peaceful, the bird above, not worried if it would be shot, or killed in an instant by artillery, just looking for the next meal. It was a primitive life, but one that I could envy, in that current situation.
"Luca" Adrian pushed my shoulder to get me out of a trance. "It's your turn, I have forty-nine, you still have forty…". There was a faint whistle sound behind me. It seemed as if time had slowed down. My eyes were looking at the abandoned boot that we had been throwing bullet casings in. But my mind was stuck on that whistle. It was a fraction of a second, yet I could almost count how long it lasted, the whistle coming from behind me.
There was a large crash behind me, like someone hitting a metal sheet with a hammer.. Instinctively I ducked down my head. Right after the thump came a force, almost as if I was pushed to the ground by someone.
I fell into the trench below where me and Adrian were sitting, with Adrian falling next to me. I could not hear anything, a loud ringing overtaking any other sound. As soon as we fell into the trench, a shower of dirt went upon us.
The shell landed a couple of meters next to us, but we were saved by sitting in the trench where we were not exposed to the shrapnel. My ears still ringing I got up and helped Adrian to his feet. Only a couple of seconds later, another shell dropped.
This time beyond us. We ran to an artillery slit close to us and dove in, Adrian first and Me second. A couple more seconds, and a couple more thumps later Felix came running and dove into the same slit. There were two Artillery slits in the squads section of the trench, both being able to fit four men, though at times all seven could fit into one.
There were only three of us in our slit, I could only hope the other five made it to their slit. We sat huddled together in the small slit, which was really just a little hovel dug into the side of the trench. Nothing would protect us if a shell landed right in front of us, we would all be dead in seconds.
Another thump, this time it was close, a couple of meters to our right. Then some silence. The silence lasted for some minutes. We all knew what was going to happen, we saw it a couple of days before, but from a safer distance.
We could do nothing to stop it, we just huddled in closer. Felix was balled up, his hands pressing heavily against his ears, his eyes shut tight. Adrian was next to him, he leaned to the wall of the slit, He almost looked peaceful, his eyes closed, not shut tight like felix, as if he was thinking of something, both of his hands resting on his knees.
I was next to them, huddled as far from the entrance as possible. The silence was deafening, with the ringing gone, the only sound was the sound of men yelling, not really sure what they were yelling, I assumed "Artillery" or something of that nature.
There was a loud thump, it shook the earth that we were backed up to. Adrian flinched and the once peaceful face was gone. Then there were tens of thumps all at once. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. We all flinched, I pushed back more, trying to get further from the opening, there was nowhere to go, I pushed into Adrian, but he didn't tell me off or push me pack.
My entire world was loud, a constant thump, with flashes, sometimes dirt would fly into the opening in front of us. I could not hear anything, my hands pressed so far up against my ears that I could have squeezed my skull. My eyes shut tight, as if that would have helped me. I could hear a faint scream that was coming from Felix, about a meter away from me, but the yell felt distant.
That feeling of helplessness came back, yet only this time worse, since I was on the receiving end. My fate was up to God, no one else. I was pushed so far up against the wall that I'm sure I left an imprint in it. Another thump landed, this time, very close.
A great amount of dust appeared in an instant, covering us. The shockwave pushed us more into the hole. My world became meak. I could see nothing if I opened my eyes. I started coughing, violently, there was something that made it hard to breathe. More loud thumps raged around us.
It is hard to describe. The feeling I had while laying, in that shallow slit, huddled around my brothers. The shells landed all around us. The clouds of dust made it hard to see, hard to breathe. The loud explosion of the shell made it impossible to hear anything but the following shells.
I'm sure as I was huddled there, in that slit, I had some thoughts, though I would never be able to admit it at the time. I thought about why I was there, so far from home, in Southern Insula, a continent that was so far away. Why was I so eager to come here?
The spectacle wore off when it was me, lying scared in a trench. I didnt think about anything, not the Emperor, not the friends around me, not even my family back home, all I thought about was that I was scared to die.
I prayed to God that a shell wouldn't land above us, or right next to us, killing me. If I had died then, I would have been the most pathetic soul entering heaven. I had now experienced the war, and I found it no fun at all.
There was not the glory of combat that I would read about in stories of old. About the old heroes who won magnificent battles. No dying for a noble cause, to save your brother or family. If I were to die, I would die in the middle of nowhere, huddled around two other scared boys.
We were not protecting our home, my family was in no danger back in Rus. If I had died, my death would have been for nothing. No epic tales would write about the soldier, who died, crying, hiding in a hole.
The bombardment lasted for some time, though I could not really say how long. After the last shell landed, there was a time of peace, but my ears still rang. None of us moved. We were too scared to go out, just to have another loud thump.
So we stayed there, huddled together. Adrian was in a ball, with his face buried deep into his knees, he was shaking a little. Felix was much the same, only he was shaking heavily. I refused to move.
The ringing in my ears somehow seemingly got louder as time went on. There was nothing to focus on except the ringing. No loud explosions. I could hear nothing except ringing. My entire world was ringing, the more I focused on it, the louder it got. I felt that I was going insane. The ringing refused to go away. I started shaking.
A hand grabbed my shoulder. I instinctively reacted, crying out and jumping back. I looked up, It was Marco. "Are you alright Luca?" He yelled. I nodded slowly. He helped me to my feet, and when I was up he moved on to the two other boys balled up in the corner. I shielded my eyes from the sun and looked around.
The trench line was a mess. All the repairs we did yesterday were damaged again. There was a slight indent in the trench some five meters away from the slit that we were hiding, an artillery shell landed there. I croaked at Marco "How bout the rest of the guys" I must have been a sorry sight, as Marco put his hand on my shoulder "Their all good Luca, Help these two, I'll be back.". He said as he hurried off down the line to where the other guys were holed up before.
I drank from my canteen, took a few, very needed gulps. After I was finished drinking I poured some on my forehead and tried to wipe my face clean. A Lot of brown water fell from my face and landed on my boots below. I checked on Adrian and Felix, we said no words, just looked at each other. We then sat down and rested.
It is crazy to say, but this was a very needed experience. For all my time in the war, most of it was spent hiding in my trench from the enemy artillery. And for my first experience, it was good that it was not followed by an assault. While I never got used to the feeling of helplessness that came with being bombarded, it did help to have experience so that later I would be able to quickly recover and man the defenses.
The rest of my time spent on the front line was spent repairing and expanding the trench. With sporadic artillery we got little sleep for the next couple days, as well as the fear that followed all of us after the third day.
We did not get hit by artillery like we did on that day, but the O.R. seemed persistent in making sure we got no rest. We would sleep when we could, when we were not on sentry duty and when we were not tasked with other menial tasks around the front line.
Those precious times of sleep were usually awoken by a lone gun shot snapping over head, which would make everyone jumpy. I would lie if I said the constant pressure was the worst part about being on the firing line, but it was definitely up there. We spent four days on edge, waiting for something that never came.
And when the dawn of the fifth day came, we were relieved. Now it was us who were the tired soldiers being relieved. We were dirty, even Marco being a mess. The dirt was baked into our skins from the overbearing sun, our clothes very dirty from being constantly thrown around. None of us had bathed in twelve days, since we got to the line.
We were a mess. The soldiers coming in, being their first time on the firing line, looked at us with some surprise, though we were just as green as they are in reality, they would soon experience what we did. At the time I did not care about what the men following us would experience; I was just thankful to be getting off the line, so I could finally get some sleep.