by Mohamed-Aniq Malik-Pannila

read time: 5 min

July 1^st, 1916. 

After three hundred yards, the platoon reached the fire trench and sat down in the cold earth. On the lip of the trench, machine guns sat behind sandbags, ready to sweep no-man’s land with bullets.  

Above them, the sky was a wash of dark blue clouds fading in the west as a fiery white sun rose in the east. Karl gazed up until a familiar voice called his name. 

“It’s from your wife, Karl,” Lieutenant Hans stated with a smile, handing Karl an envelope. Karl thumbed it open with shaky hands. 

Dear Karl, 

I miss you very much. Every time I look at little Alfred, I can’t help but remember you. He smiles just like you. Please come home soon. 

Stay safe. 

Love, Eva 

Karl stared at the words on the paper. 

“Morning, Karl,” a voice behind him greeted, it was Erich. 

“Erich, nice to see you,” Karl carefully folded the letter and put it in his left breast pocket. 

“Any news from home?” Erich questioned. 

“Can there be anything worse than being separated from your son?” Karl replied, “I want to do my part for the Kaiser and Germany, but it isn’t easy when you have a son that started just bonding with you.” 

Erich patted him on the shoulder, “We’ll get through this together. Then you’ll be evaluating a company’s balance sheet, and I’ll be writing reviews on schnitzel.” 

Karl sighed, “This war has stolen everything from us.” 

Erich nodded. 

Shrill whistling filled the air, instantly followed by thunderous explosions.  

The German infantrymen rushed to the underground bunkers. They slipped into the entrance carved into the soil, running down the wooden stairs. In the room, electric lamps lit up bunk beds surrounded by plank-lined walls. The ground shook as British artillery pounded the trenches. The men clamped their hands over their ears, praying. After what felt like hours, the guns felt silent. 

Karl checked his wristwatch. 0730 hours. 

A sentry blew his whistle.  

“Back up! Enemies on the right!” an officer barked. 

The men charged out of the room, into the trench. 

Karl reached the machine gun platform, slamming the ammo belt into it. The weapon rattled to life, the vibrations coursing through Karl’s arms and shoulders as it spat bullets across no-man’s land. Artillery shells exploded among charging British troops. Tommies fell unceremoniously across the barbed-wire infested battlefield. German rifles, machine guns and artillery fired until the assault waned. By mid-afternoon, the smell of corpses, smoke and gunpowder permeated the air across the front.  

Karl sighed as he stepped back from the gun, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. 

“Stay sharp, men,” Hans called out, adjusting the Iron Cross on his chest. 

Karl leapt down from the wooden platform in front of his officer. 

“Private Schmidt, 1 hour for sentry duty on the left. Private Meier, you’re his reserve,” Hans ordered. 

Karl and Erich saluted and marched towards their post. 

“We weren’t home by Christmas 1914, here’s to Christmas 1916,” Erich joked, raising his water canteen like a bottle of schnapps.  

Karl chuckled. 

Karl sat a short distance away, his Gewehr-98 rifle beside him. It was all quiet on the Somme. After a while, he checked his watch; Erich was ten minutes late. Karl stole a second glance at his watch. As he stood up, a gunshot echoed across the trench. 

It came from the right. Karl frantically sprinted down the zig-zagging trench to check on Erich. 

Erich lay there on the ground, smiling, his steel helmet a few centimetres from him, dark red blood leaking from the bullet hole in his temple. Karl crouched down to touch Erich’s neck; the life was draining from Erich’s body. Karl felt a stinging pain in his heart, and tears clouded his vision. There was something clenched in Erich’s hand. Karl reached down and carefully tugged it out. It was a bloodstained photo of Erich’s wife and two daughters, all smiling and well. Karl turned it over, in blue ink were the words “To father – come home safe. From Gertrud, Anna and Martha. Christmas 1915.” 

Karl felt warm inside as he reminisced about last Christmas. The dinner with family and friends, the decorated trees, and Alfred’s smiling face. It was now very alien, and distant, as he stood in a cold trench next to his dead friend. 

Karl carefully folded the photo and put it in his left breast pocket. 

In the distance, artillery guns kept drumming their destructive beat across northern France.