[ WP ] A soldier in the midst of defeat

Hugh lay on his backsides, his heavy trench coat soaked through and muddied. His Brodie helmet was dented and scarred – the cranium it protected swum and rung under the uncompromising miseries of total war. Hugh stared blankly upwards into the clouded sky, that mixture of smoke, ozone and mustard gas. Within the noxious fumes he saw the end of time itself and the beginning of his own infinity. 
 
 Hugh shifted his eyes. He coughed up a bloodied wad, his scarred lungs straining on every gasp, and spat it onto the front of his grey coat. He started to roll himself over, stopping on his side to reflect on his progress. He thought of Molly, the beauty of Kibworth, the girl he ’ d left sobbing that august day. Her gilded hair braided back, the sun accentuating her freckles, those autumnal eyes sparkling as the sun set behind Leicester ’ s outline. 
 
 Sighing, Hugh worked his way back onto his stomach. The muscles of his core clenched under the pressure, sore from the blow of a rifle ’ s butt – was it hours, minutes ago? He could not recall. The mortars whistled overhead. Hugh crawled forward towards the rim of his crater, his boots finding barely any traction under the scorched, saturated soil underneath. With ungodly discomfort, he managed to peak over the edge, tipping his Brodie helm ever slightly forward. 
 
 He thought of Kibworth ’ s fields in the midst of summer, the wind steady, the grass flowing like a verdant sea—and of those noontime picnics with Molly. How she loved to dream of flying! He would lie head resting on his hand, staring at nothing in particular and all of her at once, and her on her back, up into the azure sea of God ’ s realm. His gaze settled on a pair of bodies, entangled among the wires and traps of the battlefield. Their uniforms were so dilapidated, their bodies so grotesque Hugh couldn ’ t guess at their nation of origin. 
 
 Nothing moved. The land was still and devoid of life, absent of pursuit. The mortars whistled, the biplanes buzzed, somewhere someone was screaming—and then he wasn ’ t. The cold stung Hugh ’ s eyes, his extremities numb, his left knee destroyed and he made no noise. 
 
 Out among the wires suddenly there was motion. The hues of the field were blended, greys appeared where before there was brown. Occasionally, something glinted. Hugh knew it would come. The War was all about stagnant motion, the starts and stops, the seesaw of momentum. What left the trenches invariably came back, soggier, sadder, screaming, staring backwards. The trenches squatted, those dispensaries of life and humanity. Hugh wished to never go back. And the movement continued, slowly, deliberately and completely prone. He reached for his rifle, but came up empty handed. Hugh strained his neck and found it on the opposite side of the crater. He ’ d left it standing, the bayonet and barrel planted into the mud, listing against its own weight. Hugh looked back to the field. The mortars had stopped whistling. 
 
 Molly knew what was coming, at least when the early optimism of the war had expired, the country ’ s resources exhausting. She ’ d kissed him that night, tender, with a depth of feeling. With silent intelligence, she ’ d straightened his collar and righted his garrison cover. She never wrote him. She wouldn ’ t have had the time to, as it turns out, but he knew – he ’ d always known. 
 
 The movement stopped. Hugh stared defiantly outward, towards the horizon, above the dead Earth of the fields before him. Beneath the canopy of clouds, the sun shone briefly its rays giving his eyes an autumnal sparkle. There was a quick crack and a flash from the field. Hugh thought only of her, thought only of her, thought only -- --
