After returning to my squad I looked around at the meager people. Everyone was there, except Carlo and Nando. Adrian sat on a wooden crate. His body folded over, leaning his head against his rifle. Upon hearing us stop in front of him he looked up, met my eyes and just nodded softly, I returned the gesture.
Felix was standing up next to him. His back leaning against a wall of sandbags and his head turned to the right peeking out over dead man's land. He turned his head to me as I came up behind him. His face was caked in mud and blood he sighed as he saw me.
"Where the hell have you been?" He says as he slumps down the sandbag wall, stopping on an outcrop. "Enjoying some tea and biscuits with the general" I smile back. "Glad your grace could make some time to join us on the front" Felix smiled. "Not a moment too soon" Adrian cuts in. "coming just before we're packing up to leave" "It's called impeccable timing my good man" I say back as I sit down across from the two. "Don't get too comfortable" Our stalwart sergeant spoke up as he sat down on a crate next to me. "Still have to survive the night".
Bruno does the same, sitting at outcrops in the line or wooden crates. The stream of people passing by starts to dwindle as the sun fades. "What a day" I say quietly as I look up to the sky "What a day" Marco sighs next to me. The sunset is blood red in the sky. It turned the entire sky red, as if it had transported us to hell.
We thought we were in hell. Bodies lay out in the trench, not yet cleaned. It would not be our job to secure the line, we were being rotated. We had done our part. We had captured the first enemy trench on the Overland front. Now we just had to survive the night, as in the morning we would be out of this hell.
I could hear the cries of the wounded, out in dead man's land. Allies, shot and immobilized out there. When the night came the shouts became screams, pleading for help, for salvation. None came. No one dared to venture out and risk their own lives, they have done enough of that today, they were lucky to survive, and they knew it, they did not press that luck. That tortured us through a night of torment. Hearing the dead souls out in the void of night, screaming out for absolution. It was a painful night.
Gunshots rang out down the line. Shouting and screaming coming some twenty meters away. Flashes of gunshots pepper the night. "Raiding party" Bruno growled next to me, eyeing the commotion eagerly. Felix and Adrian who had been sleeping quickly got up and grabbed their rifles, joining us on the parapets. "Keep a keen eye" I said as I squinted into deadman's land, trying to see any movement.
Raiding parties were expected tonight. They would try and gain footholds in the confusion of night, to sow chaos in the lines. Shouting and shooting came further down the line on the other side, we were surrounded by it.
We could do nothing to help, we could not leave our section. We could just pray our men would fight well. This continued throughout the night. Every half hour or so, commotion would start up at intermediate times in the night. They wanted us on edge, to suspect every shadow a soldier, it worked.
Everytime I would start to fade off to the sweet embrace of sleep, more shooting, more shouting. I would be back up, my heart racing. I was exhausted. It seemed as if the night was going on forever. As if I was stuck in purgatory, not yet allowed to go into the paradise of morning.
It was my turn to stand guard, though in reality, I never got sleep when I was off it so it did not really matter to me. I leaned my chin on the sandbags, my eyes peeking to dead man's land. My eyes were heavy. Every blink lasted longer than the rest.
Every close of the eyelids took insurmountable strength to lift them back up again. Felix groaned next to me, mirroring my posture. He rubbed his eyes and continued to look out to the void of darkness. I looked up. The stars were out, just like my dream. Yet there was no peace here while I was still in the land of the wake.
Artillery rang out, gunshots followed. Shouts and yelling dispersed throughout the line. The moon shone on me, yet I felt no wonder as I did in the dream, I felt no need to ponder my place in this large world. Though the beauty was still there, in the thousands of stars, I was too tired to admire them. I looked back down at the darkness, my eyes feeling heavier than before. I stopped thinking, and closed my eyes a little longer than the last, but they stayed shut.
I got hit in the arm. "Luca watch out" Felix whispered to me. I quickly opened my eyes and stood up straight. He pointed his rifle to dead man's land and peaked through his iron sights, I followed. "Some movement, by the broken wagon" I peaked over to where Felix said, and saw the wagon. Two wheels missing, it slumped on its side, some thirty meters away.
I squinted my eyes. I could not see any movement, but I waited, trusting Felix's eyesight. I centered the sight on the edge of the wagon, where I thought one would move to attack our position, and waited, waited for any movement. The sight hung there, not seeing anything except the black wagon and the slightly less black background.
We sat there, pointing our rifles at a wagon for a couple of minutes. Just when I started to lose faith I saw something. The slow movement of a black outline. The outline originally was part of the wagon, but as it moved it separated. I could just see a helmet, slowly bobbing as it moved towards us. I centered my sights on that helmet. Took deep breaths to slow my heartbeat, and just as I started to breathe out I pulled the trigger.