Patrick Samphire

The Western Front

By Patrick Samphire

Illustrations © Robert Dunn.

Text © Patrick Samphire, 2005. This story may not be copied, sold or published without written permission of the author.

This story was longlisted for the British Science Fiction Association Awards, 2005.

My Dear Helen,

I still have the rose you gave me when we parted. It is pressed between the pages of my diary so that I will see it every day when I start to write. It is easy in this war to forget that which matters; with your rose, I shall never fail to remember it.

Finally, I have learned the details of my posting. You will appreciate that I cannot reveal them in a letter. I can tell you, however, that I am full of confidence.

I travelled north by train with Captain Dawson. The weather in France was glorious, almost like England at its summer best. I daydreamed of you and little Steven in our garden. It is at moments like these that I know that what we are fighting for is true and right, and that we will prevail.

The weather changed as we approached our destination. Low, grey clouds and a damp drizzle replaced the sun. We disembarked at the railhead. The fields of wheat were ripe here, but unharvested. The hedgerows were overgrown. This is a land abandoned by civilisation.

Several hundred men had travelled up with us on the train, packed tightly into open wagons, along with several artillery pieces. Captain Dawson and I watched the artillery being unloaded then hitched to mules and dragged away. I am told that we have a significant advantage in guns. You see, my sweet, your fears were unfounded. We cannot fail.

Finally, a flustered and apologetic runner arrived to guide us to General Gough's forward command post, where we received our disbursements. We are still far from the front. Gough gave us sherry and cigars, and we played cards late into the night with one of his aides (not for money, you will be pleased to hear; we have retained some civilised traits, even here).

Tomorrow I will be taken to meet my platoon at the front. My own platoon! Oh, Helen, I am so proud. This is what I trained for. I will win this war for you. Jerry's army is ready to break; Haig is sure of it, and he will put everything into our push. I will be home with you soon.

Give my love to little Steven, and tell him what a brave and glorious man his daddy has become.

With all my affection and love.

Richard

15th July, 1917

Diary of Lieutenant Richard Stark, 16th July, 1917

Gough's maps are astounding. We have mapped every single one of Jerry's trenches and fortifications in painstaking detail. Every brigade's push is clearly marked and objectives set, hour-by-hour. My unit is part of the 21st Division, 2nd Corp, under Brigadier-General Goodman. Gough had nothing but praise for the man's courage and honour. When the offensive begins, my unit will help secure the Gheluvelt plateau.

Gough has a relief model of the terrain. Jerry holds the high ground and uses it to observe our movements, although our taking of the Messine ridge has given us a foothold of our own. Within seven-and-a-half hours of the beginning of the assault, my platoon will have established itself within Polygon Wood, and the push on the whole Passchendaele Ridge will begin. Then Jerry will break.

After the meeting, we took another train to Ypres. The city is a ruin, the ground around it pocked with old craters. A guide met me there, and I said my farewells to Captain Dawson. I do not know if I will see him again. This war has taken so many, and even with Haig's best plans, we will lose more here.

Beyond the Menin Gate, the terrain began to change. The land was more broken. Where once trees stood, shattered stumps poked jaggedly into the dirty sky. The earth was overgrown with weeds, and it had not been cultivated for some time. Here and there, craters were ripped from the soil, and in the bottom of some of them, black water glistened.

We passed our rear defences and took a duckboard path towards the front line. It took us near on an hour to reach the trenches. No doubt my lack of surefootedness on the treacherous duckboard paths slowed us.

Only two hundred yards separate our front line from Jerry's forward zone, if I recall Gough's maps correctly. I did not risk a look. I followed my guide, head down.

About a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards to our right, our forward line cuts into the shattered tangle of Sanctuary Wood. I am glad not to be stationed there. I would not wish to advance through that zone.

My 'men' are a sorry-looking bunch. I do not know the last time any of them saw a razor or boot polish. Their uniforms are dirty and worn, and I would have struggled to tell them from Germans under the muck. They did not rise when I entered this section of the trench. They glanced up, and then returned to their activities. It is no wonder we have made little progress on this front. The men lack discipline.

Half-a-dozen sat playing cards around an upturned crate. Others lounged about, reading or talking. Another stood, peering over the edge of the trench with a periscope.

A shot rang out. Like a fool, I ducked.

The man at the periscope turned with a grin and held up a finger. Cheers arose from my men.

"Their engineers are out," my guide explained. "Probably laying wire."

A moment later, a figure slipped over the edge into the trench, shouldering his rifle.

"That sent Jerry back to his hole," the soldier with the periscope said.

"For now," the newly-arrived man said. He fumbled in his pockets, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it.

Frowning, I stepped forward. "Soldier."

He blinked, as though he had only just noticed me.

"Who are you?" he said. There was an arrogance to the way he spoke that I disliked immediately.

The men call him Bird, I have discovered. I can see why. His eyes are small, black. His nose is sharp and long.

"I am your commanding officer," I said. "Now put out your cigarette."

"Is that right?" Bird sauntered over and blew a cloud of smoke in my face. "Well, let me tell you something. We've had a dozen lieutenants here in the last six months. Lieutenant Donald lasted longest. Hard as old oak, he was, with eyes in the back of his head. Come up from the ranks, see? He managed a month before Jerry put a lump of lead through his throat. Took a day to die, he did. Never screamed once." Bird scratched behind his ear. "Mind you, it's hard to scream with most of your throat gone." Someone sniggered behind me. Bird continued, "The others, Jerry's guns took four of them. Two more tried to nut shells, and one didn't get his mask on quickly enough when the gas rolled in. Nasty one, that." He shook his head.

"And the rest?" I asked.

Bird smiled. "They got careless. Tripped backwards, all four of them, one after another. Fell onto knives." He stepped past me, and as he did so, he whispered, "Welcome to Wipers, Lieutenant. Try not to get anyone killed before you cop it."

I heard laughs around me.

There is a cancer at the heart of this unit. Its name is Bird. I will cut it out.

Diary of Lieutenant Richard Stark, 18th July, 1917

We can't keep the water out of the damned trench. I've had the men pumping, but they work lethargically, and when I turn my back they stop. And the water just seeps back in. Everything is damp, my boots, my clothes, my skin. Everything stinks of mildew and rot.

The bombardment of Jerry's front line began not long after my arrival, and it has increased hourly. I cannot sleep. The explosions shudder through the earth. The detonations punch the air. Two nights without sleep. My head aches. My eyes are filled with needles. Sometimes I find myself just standing there, having forgotten what I was doing. I long for the order to attack.

When the bombardment began, I overheard the men talking.

"Might as well send Jerry a letter to say we're coming," Bird said. "When it gets heavy, he'll just pull back from the front line and pound us as we advance."

"Keep your opinions to yourself," I snapped. "You are no general."

Bird just looked at me, his gaze unwavering, and I am ashamed to admit that I looked away first.

It has gone on long enough. I will confront Bird.

The cloud-cloaked dusk has faded. The shells fall and shiver through my exhausted bones.

There are rats in the trenches. I can hear them in the dark.

I will confront Bird now.

Diary of Lieutenant Richard Stark, 19th July, 1917

Bird was not there when I went to confront him last night.

"He's out on patrol," one of the men said.

"I gave no orders," I said.

"Bird don't need no orders," the man replied.

I waited, as though I was the corporal and he the lieutenant. Eventually, close on dawn, Bird slithered, like the reptile he is, back into the trench.

I stood. "Where have you been?" I demanded.

He made a show of looking around. "Just stretching me legs."

"I could have you shot for desertion," I shouted.

Those horrid little bird eyes stilled on me. "Do you know what we're here for, Lieutenant?"

I blinked.

"We're here to kill the Hun," he said. "That's all. Forget your nanny's tales of honour and glory. Those was just lies to keep you from crying in the dark. Well, guess what? Those lies don't work in this dark, and it just keeps getting darker. The only truth is the killing. That's what I do. I kill the Hun." He stepped up close. "I won't have no wet-behind-the-ears boy with a few stripes on his jacket getting in my way." He lit up a cigarette. It glowed red in the darkness. His face showed strange shadows from that glow. "Understand that, Lieutenant, and you might make it for a couple of weeks." He chuckled, a nasty wet cough of a laugh. "After all, it'll all be over by then, right?"

My Dear Helen,

It has been raining for a week. God, how I miss those English summer days. I have not seen the sun once on these Ypres fields. I swear it grows darker each day.

Not long now, my love. The push will come soon. Jerry will break. I will be home to you before Christmas. Imagine that! We'll have presents and a roaring fire and everything will be dry.

The shelling never stops. Our guns pound away night and day. It is impossible to sleep for more than five minutes at a time. I fear it may drive me mad. I am almost driven to use strong language, but I would never do so to you.

Do not fear for me, Helen. I am just tired, and you know that makes me bad-tempered.

All will be well. We will win. We must.

If only I could see the sun again. If only I could sleep.

My love to you and Steven.

Richard.

23rd July, 1917

Diary of Lieutenant Richard Stark, 23 July, 1917

Bird came up behind me when I was writing my letter to Helen. He moved silently, even in the liquid mud that covers the bottom of the trench. I didn't hear him until he spoke.

"They'll break?" he said. "Is that what Haig told you?"

"Yes. How dare you read my letter?"

I glowered at him through the rapidly falling dark.

"That's what Haig told us on the Somme. Ready to break, he said. Just one push." He shook his head. Then he turned, and without asking permission, climbed out of the trench and disappeared towards no-man's land.

Diary of Lieutenant Richard Stark, 25 July, 1917

I think I have lost Helen's rose. When I opened the diary, it was not there. It must have fallen into that horrible, liquid mud and sunk. I might have shed some tears for it. I could not tell. The raindrops draw permanent tears on my cheeks.

Bird came sliding into the trench near dawn, as he always does. I rose as he did, but he ignored me and strode straight towards the other men.

"You two," he gestured. "Come with me. We're going back out."

"What's up?" one of the men asked.

"Jerry's abandoned his front line," Bird said. "We're going to find out where he's dropped back to." He shook his head. "I don't like it. It'll give him too much clear ground to hammer us over."

The men grabbed their rifles and followed Bird out. None of them glanced at me. I might not even have existed.

I do not know the names of my men. I don't know how that happened.

Perhaps I should send a message to Command about Jerry leaving his trenches. But my men should not be out there. They have no authorisation.

I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do.

I will go back to my dugout. Maybe I will sleep.

Diary of Lieutenant Richard Stark, 26 July, 1917

Bird. His name is a curse that hammers through my head with every hammer blow of those damned shells. If it wasn't for him, my men would obey me. I should go up to him, put my pistol to his head, and blow out his stupid brains.

God, give me sleep. Please.

There was a dogfight over Jerry's lines today. I pulled out my map and stared at it, trying to work out where they were fighting. The marks on the map made no sense to me. I couldn't even tell where we are. The dogfight went on most of the day. I think we won. It hasn't made any difference to the bombardment.

We began to drop gas on Jerry yesterday. I peered through the periscope and watched the gas settle over the broken woods and Jerry's trenches. All along his line, I heard spoons clattering against plates and empty shell cases.

Bird and his men--my men!--were out all day. God forgive me, but I found myself praying that the gas or a shell had found them.

When they returned, Bird seemed different, troubled, quiet. Perhaps the bombardment is getting to him too. He did not speak to me. Instead, I saw him whispering to my men. They are planning something. Bird will not meet my eyes. He looks away when I look at him. Has he seen something in my eyes? Maybe madness dances there.

I will not turn my back on these men.

Bird left just before dawn, taking two different men with him. They have not yet returned.

Diary of Lieutenant Richard Stark, 28 July, 1917

A shell burst in our trench today. I was in my dugout, so I didn't see it, but I felt the concussion through the earth. When I got to the trench, a crater had been ripped through earth walls. Three of my men were dead. I did not know their names.

Each day, before light, Bird takes different men from my platoon, and they slip out of the trench. They do not return until after nightfall. I sit here in the never-ending rain, under ever-grey skies, listening to the nerve-fraying thump of shells, and wait for the men to return. I have tried to question them, but they do not answer me. I held my pistol to one man's face. He just turned away. I could have pulled the trigger. I almost did. My fingers shake all the time.

Yesterday, two of the men did not return.

Where do they go?

My Dear Helen,

All is well. Do not fear for me. You are too prone to worrying.

I know the sun must be up there, behind those clouds. It must.

I think my feet are rotting in this damp.

God help me, but these damned shells are driving me insane. Thump. Thump. Thump. It never stops. I want to scream. I cannot take another fucking, God damned minute of it.

The push will come soon. I have received word to prepare my men. My men. God, I want to cry.

The push cannot come too soon. Even Jerry's bullets would be better than this.

You know I love you. All will be well. I am sure. You must believe me. I am not without hope.

Give my love to our son. I find I have forgotten his name for now, but it will come to me soon. I am just tired.

Richard.

29th July, 1917

Diary of Lieutenant Richard Stark, 31 July, 1917

It is night. Maybe 1 a.m. In any case, it is past midnight. I am out here, far from the safety of the trench. We are huddled in a shell hole, in the midst of the tangle of smashed trees that is Glencourse Wood. It is cold. The rain falls.

I had fallen asleep. I know I must have, despite the pounding of shells, because I was suddenly awake. I was sitting at the table in my dugout. I had fallen asleep over the map of our section of the front, trying to make some sense of the blurring lines and symbols. I could not have been asleep long, because it was not yet dawn.

Silence woke me. Not silence of the guns--they never end--but the smaller silence of absent voices. I have grown used to the men's voices in the night. Not now.

I jumped from my seat, grabbed my gas mask, shoved this diary into the pocket of my coat, pulled my pistol, and headed out into the trench.

My men were there, lined up at the front of the trench, and one-by-one, they were going quietly over the top in the dark and drenching rain.

"Stop!" I shouted, pointing my pistol. The men froze. That may have been the first of my commands that my men have obeyed, and the last.

"Where are you going?" I demanded.

The men exchanged glances.

Bird's head appeared over the lip of the trench. "What, do you think we're deserting, Lieutenant?"

"Well," I said, awkwardly.

Bird's voice was wet with sarcasm. "If we was deserting, don't you think we might be heading in the other direction?"

With an effort, I reasserted myself. "Where the hell do you go every night? Are you traitors? Are you telling the Hun our plans?"

Bird considered for a moment. Then he said, "If you want to see, you'd best follow. We ain't hanging about, though. If you don't keep up, we'll leave you."

With that, he disappeared. The men resumed their climb out of the trench. My pistol felt like a toy in my hand. After a second, I holstered it, and followed my men over the top, into the night.

I cannot adequately describe that journey. No man's land was a hell hole. Rain poured down. Mud sucked at our boots. The shell holes had overlapped to form black lakes.

Within minutes, I no longer knew where I was nor where we were heading.

Up ahead, a heavy machine gun stuttered. I threw myself to the ground. Bullets smacked the mud.

"They ain't seen us," Bird's whispered voice came back.

We crawled forward. My hand pressed on a face jutting from the mud. I turned away and forced myself not to vomit.

A shell ruptured the earth nearby. Mud hammered over me. I bit my tongue to stop myself screaming. I rubbed the mud from my face.

When I could see again, I realised my men were no longer in sight. Panic took me. "Wait," I whispered. "Wait."

No one answered.

I was alone in no man's land. All around, shells thumped and shook the ground.

I stumbled to my feet and ran. The machine gun stuttered again to my left. I turned towards the sound.

A shell hole opened in front of me. I tumbled, fell, hit black water. I struggled. The mud below sucked at me and pulled me down. Water soaked through to my waist. This time I did scream.

A hand grabbed my hair and tugged my head back.

Bird's face glowered down at me from the edge of the shell hole, not two feet away. "Shut up that noise, or I'll put a bullet through your head myself."

Golden specks seemed to swim in his black eyes.

With a gulp, I clamped my mouth shut. Still, I felt myself sinking.

"Good enough," he said. He pulled me agonisingly by my hair from the mire.

The men were waiting not a dozen yards away, pressed flat in the mud and ragged weeds. Without a word, Bird led them into the rain and dark, and I followed.

The ground sloped up. We crawled over an abandoned German trench. Two hundred yards, I thought. That was all we had come. Two hundred yards.

Beyond the trench, the wasteland continued. Cold rain and mud soaked through my clothes.

At some point, we crossed a road. It was cracked and cratered. In the darkness, a German soldier rose in front of us. Bird's bayonet slid in and up, and the man slumped without a sound.

We reached a broken mass of trees. Wire had been strung like a chaotic spider's web through the stripped trunks and scattered branches. Bird led us up, without pause, through this mess.

A shell sent splinters spinning through the air. Several embedded themselves in my cheek. I slipped and fell onto jagged wood. I dragged myself up, sobbing silently.

"God, let us turn back," I muttered beneath my breath. "Please."

There was a man hanging on the wire, scarecrow-loose and sagging. I recognised his face as we passed. He'd been one of my men.

"Jape's been on the wire for two days," the man in front of me whispered. "Still smiling, though."

We left the body behind. All around us, the bombardment continued. Flashes lit up the blackness, blinding us. The earth shook. Shrapnel tore through the darkness. Rain fell.

Cylinders thudded into the woods.

"Gas," Bird called, and moments later I heard the hiss. I fumbled my mask on, just before the grey cloud rolled over us.

We crawled through the shattered woods and wire and gas. Shells fell. Machine guns chattered. One of my men reared up before me, fell. I crawled over him, feeling his warm blood on my hands.

"I don't know your name," I whispered to him. "I don't know it."

He didn't answer.

I could no longer think. I just followed.

In time, the gas cleared, and we pulled off our masks.

Helen, how did I get into this?

I heard words spoken ahead. Then Bird and the other men dropped down from sight into a deep shell hole hidden by broken trees. I followed.

There were other men there. I recognised their uniforms. Germans. I whipped out my pistol.

"I knew it," I shouted. "You're traitors. All of you are damned traitors." My finger tightened on the trigger.

Bird moved faster than I could follow. His right fist buried itself in my stomach as his left hand knocked my pistol from my hand. I staggered and doubled over, gasping for breath.

"You don't understand," Bird whispered. "You don't understand anything at all. This ain't about sides no more. It ain't about killing. It's more important."

"What?" I choked out.

"It's nearly dawn," he said. "You'll see."

I waited, never taking my eyes from these men. How long, I wondered, had this been going on? How long had my men been meeting the Hun in this wilderness between our lines? There was a cancer, I had been right. But the cancer was more than indiscipline. It was treason. But treason to what purpose?

Light grew in the rain-washed sky. Thick clouds hung heavy and dark and low. I shivered in the pre-dawn chill, in my sodden clothes.

"It's almost time," someone muttered, and as he spoke, the sun rose behind the clouds.

A single ray of sunlight cut through clouds and rain like a sword. I followed its path with my eyes.

The sunlight stabbed down straight to a single spot on the edge of the shell hole. In that spot, a single rose bloomed.

A sigh passed around the men in the hole.

"See," Bird whispered.

"This is what you go to see?" I asked. "Sunshine falling on a rose?"

I wanted to cry. I had forgotten what sunshine looked like, in the dark and rain.

"No," Bird said. "The sunshine ain't falling on the rose. Look closer."

I scrambled over and peered close. It took a moment for my perception to shift, but when it did, I could do no more than blink.

Bird was right. The sunshine did not fall on the rose. The sunshine came from the rose, instead, and pierced the clouds, shining up to the sun.

"It feeds the sun," Bird said, close over my shoulder. "If the rose should be destroyed, the sun will never shine on Ypres fields again. We don't come to see the rose. We come to defend it. Soon the push will come." His lips brushed my ear. "The rose will not fall."

I sat there with my men and their German counterparts, and watched the rose as the day crept on, the heavy rain fell, and the sunlight from the rose crept up, across the sky, and down towards the horizon.

The sun has set. Night draws on. We wait.

The bombardment has increased tenfold. The shells are a constant rumble. In the darkness, blinding flashes of star shells sear away the black. My fingers are cold. The pages of this diary are damp. My pistol lies close by my hand.

With dawn, the rose sends its single beam of sunlight through the massed clouds and pouring rain.

The bone-shaking rumble of shells draws closer.

"Here it comes," Bird shouts. "Heads down."

Diary of Lieutenant Richard Stark, 1 August, 1917

I had thought crossing no man's land was bad. I had thought my days in the trenches were bad. I was wrong.

At walking pace, the bombardment crept up the slope towards us. Above and around us, in the tangle of Glencourse Wood, German emplacements opened up. The German heavy guns sheltering behind the Gheluvelt plateau sent their own barrage in response.

A thermite shell burst in the woods to my left. Heat rolled over the shell hole, turning rain to steam. Someone screamed and lurched across the hole.

The bombardment reached us. Concussions shook the ground. Mud, splintered wood, shrapnel, and fire filled the air. The earth bucked beneath me like a kick. Shockwaves battered the breath from my lungs. My eyes streamed stinging tears.

I think I must have been screaming, but I couldn't be sure; the noise had deafened me. I could still feel the monstrous sound pounding through my body.

A star shell burst above, turning the thick dawn white.

My muscles and bones had turned to liquid. I lay, face pressed into the mud, hands over my head, in the bottom of the deep hole. Earth and fragmented metal pattered onto my back.

Someone booted me in the side. I pulled my face up. My vision was seared from the star shell. I could still feel the shells thumping. I blinked to focus. Bird was bending over me. "Get up," he mouthed. "Get up."

Men were rising in the shell hole, checking their guns. I scrambled up. Sunlight was still streaming from the rose. I gulped back a sob. Three men were not moving. A shard of shrapnel jutted from the bloody back of one man's skull.

"Take positions," Bird shouted, although I only saw his lips move. "They're coming."

He turned and clumped back down the hole. He grabbed me by the collar and pulled my face near. "Shoot anyone who comes near. Anyone. Understand?"

I nodded, and Bird shoved me towards the edge. I scrabbled up, not looking at the bodies.

The shells were still falling. I could see gouts of earth erupting not a hundred yards away. New holes had been gouged in the woods all about.

There was no movement. I narrowed my eyes. The infantry should have followed the progressing bombardment, sheltered by its deadly screen. Yet they were nowhere to be seen.

One by one, the German machine guns began again. My pistol was cold and heavy in my hand.

Men streamed from the forward dugouts, ant-small in the distance. The guns found them and took them. Bodies jerked and danced and were flung aside. More came. Earth sprayed. Shells shook and smashed the ground.

A squad emerged from the edge of Sanctuary Wood. Bullets cut through them.

More men came, pouring from the dugouts. For every three who came, two fell before they had covered a hundred yards. Others threw themselves flat and wormed forward through the mud and rain and falling metal.

A dozen men, led by a captain brandishing a pistol, rushed a German emplacement. Only the captain reached it. I saw him leap into the emplacement, his pistol firing. Moments later, the machine gun fell silent. That should have been me, I thought. I should have led my men like that. The captain did not emerge.

Slowly, the advance crept forward. Men slipped into water-filled holes and were gone from sight. Bullets violated flesh and smashed bone. Shells ripped bodies to rags. With every step, a hundred lives were lost, like bright night stars engulfed by a cloud.

Still the advance came on, in rushes and starts. I wept tears of loss, and blinding hate for Gough and Haig and all the fools who sent men forward into this scythe.

Figures came up through the woods. I saw bullets smack home, men thrown onto wire. Rain lashed my face. Dark clouds hung low.

"Not this way," I whispered. "Don't come this way."

Around me, men raised their guns. I steadied my trembling hands.

Hell broke around us. A shell erupted to the side, tossing men like paper. British soldiers rushed towards us. I fired, and others fired with me. Men fell.

The return fire came. The man next to me jerked and rolled away. I ignored him, kept firing.

Wave after wave came. I could not think, could not pause. When men drew near, I shot them, coldly, mercilessly.

I think I put a bullet through Captain Dawson. He was running at the head of his company. He turned towards our hole, and I fired. He went down.

For uncounted hours, we fought, hours that became days that became centuries that became aeons. The rose , I thought, as my dead fingers pushed more bullets into my pistol. The rose must not fall.

A splinter of shrapnel cut through my left arm. Blood flowed with the rain over my face from a wound I hadn't felt.

A Tommy hurled himself towards our hole. He had lost his rifle. His face was blank with terror. I shot him through the throat.

A German machine gun found our hole. The bullets tore through my companions and smacked the mud around me, before a brave squad of Tommies rushed it and silenced it.

At some point, Jerry counter-attacked, and we reversed our positions and killed the Hun.

A shattering barrage of shells crashed around us. The concussions tossed me like a rag in a stormy sea. Something smacked me on the back of my head, and I lost sight.

When consciousness returned, the firing had stopped. I could no longer feel the rumble and chatter in my bones, nor the heat on my skin. I arose, shaking. Smoke drifted across the shell hole and the mud and the broken stumps of trees.

Over. It was over.

I turned. Bird was behind me. He lay, curled, in the mud on the side of the shell hole. Shrapnel studded his back and legs. His thick blood had mixed with the black mud. I stepped towards him.

He moved, rolling over onto his pierced back. His eyes were golden. They blinked once, then became glass. He did not move again.

Where he had been curled, a single beam of sunlight cut up through the rain and clouds from the rose.

The rose had survived. The sun would shine again.

I picked up Bird's rifle, checked and loaded it, and sat beside his body, waiting, waiting.

The push may come again. I will not let the rose fall.

- End -