Stand

When will the artillery stop?

How do I dig deeper, find safety, escape?

I curl-up even tighter, making myself as small as possible at the base of the trench.

Trench.

It was a trench.

Now it’s more like a rodent hole filled with the refuse of humanity cowering in the face of industrial death.

“ON YOUR FEET!” Cap yells to what’s left of 3rd Company.

My helmet slides off my head as I fight against the suction of the mud to rise.

Feet, we are to stand in this?

Stand equals die.

A vacuum sound overpowers the crash of artillery for a moment as my trench coat pulls away from the enveloping mud.

Holding my rifle with my right hand, I lean over, to recover my helmet before I lose it forever in the sludge of excrement, flesh, rodent, rain, blood and dirt at the base of the trench.

“FIX BAYONETS!” Cap orders from a few feet away.

He may as well be on the other side of the moon, as I can barely hear him.

Our trench is crumbling.

The artillery is taking more of us each second.

He wants us to prepare to attack?

Rising, helmet in hand, I place it atop my head.

Drips of fetid trench mud stream down from my hair as I reach to my belt with my left hand to pull out my bayonet.

“WE ONLY HAVE ONE WAY THIS ENDS!” Cap calls out. “ATTACK!”

Fumbling with my bayonet and rifle, I slowly manage to connect the two.

End

It Ends.

I die?

I have to die for this to end.

My rifle in my right hand; my helmet atop my head; my heart nowhere to be found; my feet sinking in a swamp of death, I stand ready to die.

“ON MY COMMAND WE CHARGE THE BOCHE!” Cap yells so all, maybe twenty of us left, can hear him.

Looking to my right, I see someone’s outline, but I can’t make out who.

We will die fighting.

We will die standing.

We will die.

The figure to my right stands tall, rifle with bayonet sticking above the top of the trench.

“Aaaaattttaaaa. . . .” Is cut short by a deluge of earth.

Where did the night go?

Where did the company go?

Where am I?

I can’t feel my rifle.

I can’t feel my self.

I can’t breath.

I can’t.

I can’t.

. . .

I . . . Can’t.

In June 12, 1916 two battalions of the French 137th Infantry Regiment were buried alive in a front-line trench during a heavy German artillery bombardment. No one knows exactly how it happened, but all that remained at the end of the battle was a filled in trench pierced in regular intervals by bayoneted rifles. After excavating the site, it was realized each rifle was still held by an upright French soldier, seemingly preparing to attack when buried alive. The entire unit was annihilated, so there are not records of exactly what happened and how. What is known is, these soldiers died standing, ready to attack. They were some of the more than 500,000 French and 400,000 Germans who died at the Battle of Verdun. After the war a combination of donors provided funding for a temporary, and then more permanent memorial to maintain the site. One can visit The Trench of Bayonets to see what’s left of those who died ready. They symbolize all soldiers; humans buried under the weight of industrialized warfare.