Loud bursts of gunshots rang out throughout the line on our right, where the yelling started. I shot my eyes over and I could see some O.R soldiers charging some forty meters to their old firing line. Only few actually went over dead man's land, most of them, from what I gathered were going through their communications trenches.
The ones that were brave enough to charge over the top did not last long, and would topple over soon. Machine gun fire rang out as well. This time aimed at us. We all hastily flinched as we dove back to the safety of the trench. I looked at the man who I had been talking to earlier, he looked at me, and grinned a little. Bullets snapped overhead, keeping our heads down.
Once the machine gun fire settles down, guess to reload, I went to the parapet and looked over. What I saw woke me up in a second. Hundreds of O.R men running at us, sprinting forty some meters to us. "GET TO THE WALLS THEIR COMING" I shouted as I once again raised my rifle and pulled the trigger, one of the charging soldiers in blue dropping.
The men I was with also went up next to me and started to fire as quickly as they could. The machine gun fire opened up again, but we did not duck down, we could not, as the more pressing issue was not the machine gun, but the hundreds of soldiers running at us.
The battlefield erupted again, once again engulfed in the sound of battle. More and more friendly reinforcements came from down the line, as well as a few stragglers coming from dead man's land.
More and more O.R soldiers rushed towards us. We fired like mad men. Never before racking my rifle as quickly as I did in that moment. Every shot would hit a soldier, with how packed up they were. But the forty meters would be covered quickly by the sprinting men, even if most of them were getting shot.
The man next to me, who I chatted with, got shot in the head by a machine gun round. The bullet passed effortlessly through his helmet and lodged in his head. His head shook for a second then his body proceeded to crumple backwards falling back. I paid no attention to him as the soldiers got close.
The few men with bombs threw them, and loud cracks rang out in dead man's land, with large dust clouds being kicked up by them. They also started tossing the grenades. Most didn't make it into the trench. Being thrown over my head or falling short.
One landed close to me. Within a couple of meters. I pushed my body behind a wall of sandbags that were lining the parapet. The loud explosion ranged out as dust and tiny pieces of metal were kicked up in every direction. I could hear the shrapnel hit off metal, and could hear the cries of pain as the shrapnel entered my comrades.
I did not have time to think about this and check on my comrades. I quickly reloaded my gun and raised it on the parapet once again. This time I was met with a person. A person dressed in a blue trench coat. He was within a couple of meters but I did not have the time to shoot him, as he was already far too close.
I saw in his hand a rifle that was pointed directly at me. He shot at me but I ducked before, having the bullet kick up the dirt that was just above me. He then jumped in, not landing well, and stumbling towards the back wall. I swung my rifle towards him and pulled the trigger, not aiming. He was so close that I didn't need to aim.
My gun sounded off and I saw the man's body go lifeless. I quickly racked my gun as three more jumped in afterwards. The first two were facing my direction, and the third was preoccupied with a man on the other side. The second guy shot at me, not aiming, and somehow missed. The bullet kicked dirt in the wall just to my left. The first guy did not even have a rifle, but instead a mace. He was charging the short ground between us while screaming. I moved my rifle to the left and shot the guy behind, who was in the process of reracking his rifle.
As I did this the first man swung at me. I was never a good brawler back home. My more average size means I never got used to winning fights. Some people could see in slow motion, or at least they tell me, when a person swings at you. Let me tell you this, I could not. The man swung his mace with a vendetta.
I could only see a flash as his arm whipped towards me. I tried and moved my rifle to block the path, but was not quick enough. The mace hit part of my left shoulder, and part of my rifle. If I had been any slower I have no doubt I would have broken a bone and then lost my life there.
The force of the attack knocked me to the right making me fall down, my hands losing my tight grip on my rifle as it fell away. The man jumped on me again and in my confused state started pressing down the long shaft on the mace on my neck, trying to suffocate me.
If he had just finished the job, with one or two more swings of his mace, That would have been the end of my story. It would have been him, writing about his experience in his war, how he courageously charged the enemy with nothing but a medieval weapon, and quickly dispatched the first enemy he saw with expert ease.
But no, he did not. I expect the man with the rifle, who I shot first , or some other person I shot in the thirsty seconds leading up to this man straddling me and pushing a medieval weapon upon my throat was one of his friends. It had to have been personal. As I lay down, getting the life choked out of me, I could see a personal hate in his eyes.
Back to reality I started to struggle. I started ripping punches at his gut hoping that one would hit his liver. He did not react to it. Simply pushing more pressure on my throat. I thought he may have broken the bone at the front of the throat, whatever bone that is, with how hard he was pressing down.
My hands went to the bar, pushing back with all my might, but it did not seem to budge. I started to panic. My hands were squirming about, trying to find something to hit this man who was quickly killing me. My right hand found what it was looking for, a heaven sent rock. I gripped the rock and with all the strength I had remaining in my tired and slowly fading body I smashed that rock into the bottom of his chin.
The man recoiled from the hit and fell to my left. The pressure now off my neck sent a rush of air down into my lungs. I started to cough violently, grabbing my throat as it felt a terrible pain.
I was brought back to the real world when the mace wielding man slowly recovered from the hit. Moving his body slowly over to his side. I forgot about the pain and exhaustion building up in my body and grabbed the mace the man had dropped and started slamming it against his head, one after the other.
I was not going to make the same mistake this man had made. He was on his back. The strikes had been hitting his helmet, denting it. I move my aim to the nape of his neck, just under where the helmet lies. I start slamming the mace down again. Every time harder than the last. Instead of the quick feedback of hitting the helmet.
There was no feedback in hitting his flesh. It absorbed the hits. Maybe this was why I never realized that he had already been dead. There was a dent in the back of his head where a bloody mess caved in. The mace was drenched in blood, yet I was mostly clean of it. There were no massive blood splatters. Just the blood that dripped off the end of the mace that went down into my hands.
Though I felt like I had been fighting my own personal battle, I quickly realized there was a larger one at hand. All around me, there were people engaged in hand to hand combat. With bayonets, knives, hammers, shovels, maces, anything that a person could get ahold of. People on top of people.
People fighting, punching, kicking, screaming in one epic brawl. This was not how modern combat was supposed to be, this was carnage. I quickly ran over to a comrade who was getting beaten by a rock on the floor. I swung my new mace at the back of the unsuspecting O.R solder and connected well to the back of the head. The helmet dented as it made contact with the metal mace. The man fell over.
This savage combat went on for some time. More men running over from dead man's land, adding to the fray. This kind of combat was worse than anything I had been a part of. I had wished that I had been cowering against a massive barrage, instead of here. It is a different feeling, shooting a man, and killing him with your own hands. When you shoot one, you don't really feel anything, you don't feel attached, you are separated from the dirty work, you only pull a trigger. When bludgeoning a man to death, you tend to feel differently about it.
After the large brawl was over, some fifteen minutes later, the survivors lay exhausted. Fifteen whole minutes, fighting for our lives. I had used all the weapons I could find. The mace being hit out of my hand. I picked up a rifle with a bayonet, when that got stuck in the body of an enemy, I dropped it and used a shovel which was lying dormant in the hands of a dead legionnaire.
The vicious edge of the shovel was very effective in dispatching the enemy. I had been cut on my right arm, the effect of a trench knife. The bleeding is slowing down but still coating my sleeve in blood. I had countless other bruises on my body. From being punched, clubbed, kicked, I was even bitten by a man who I was tumbling in the dirt with. The snow stopped a little while ago, and the sky opened up, to reveal the carnage that we were experiencing.
I sat down on a crate, utterly exhausted. My brain has been in survival mode for the whole thirty minutes. I thought I would have died of exhaustion ten minutes ago, but the mind tends to ignore the warnings of the body when in a dangerous situation.
Now that the situation had passed, the body took its toll. Even if another attack came, I would not be much use. I was at the end of my ropes. I leaned my head back on the wall, my helmet giving me some cushion. While I was sitting there, in a trench filled with the dead and dying, sitting crumpled up on the side of a trench, I would not have slept better if I was in a mansion, in a king bed, with heavy sheets and comfortable pillows. My eyes closed themselves and I drifted off.