COLEGIO JEFFERSON · 2020
I
t was at dawn, the shells seemed to have spit black venom on the gloom land where a black mist always hung. The forest thicket that veiled the camp had fallen and had a sad look like it was resting eternally except it wasn’t at peace. The glittering sunny day had sucked the skins of the remained soldiers. It was just another day on the western front. Bloody soaked. This vicious rain has been falling for weeks now and we are bloody soaked in these dugouts. Soaked in mud in our trenches. Not even the putties keep the moisture out of our toes. “Bear it lads” our sarge usually blurts as he slugs through the ditch. It’s quite chilling, seeing this chuffed fellow soaked to the brass making a mockery of our situation. Far too much for some of the boys to handle, but, I’ve seen worse. The mud here isn’t liquid at all, it isn’t porridge. In reality, it is a curious kind of sucking mud ... Perhaps it is a real monster that sucks at you. It seems as if rain and artillery are making an effort to turn the trenches into cesspools where the men flounder and drown. A true nightmare of earth and mud. After living amidst these white-faced men with their rosaries and copper crosses, never getting away from this grotesque atmosphere, you gradually succumb to the mystic languor exhaled by the rifles of the Hun. Rank doesn’t even matter anymore. Private, Lance Corporal, Brigadier, nothing of that rubbish is of use when you find yourself at the end of a muzzle. The first thing I did when I was promoted was to exchange that bloody piece of tin and ribbon for wine with a French officer. Distinctions and ribbons don’t serve good to a dead man. This is a weird state of affairs down here. Every once in a while, The Hun shell something about a quarter of a mile on the left, while on the right there is a lamb running wild. Miles of country scorched into hell. But, most of the time I find 75
