MUFFLED BATTLE CRIES preceded the first wave of soldiers climbing out of the trenches, their rifles and voices raised in a common goal—break the enemy line. The Germans answered with machine-gun fire, mowing down dozens before they reached the top. Some fell back into the trenches. Others collapsed over the edge of the parapets. Those who escaped the first barrage climbed over those who didn’t and charged onto no-man’s-land.
They squeezed through holes cut in the barbed wire stretched between spiked posts. The rusty steel barbs tugged at the young soldier’s wool greatcoat as he crawled through an opening. An infantryman, sent out before the assault to clip the wire, lay near the jagged hole, the wire cutters still clutched in his lifeless hand.
The young soldier yanked his coat free, raised his rifle, and rushed across the barren field with his battalion. A line of bullets carved a path within inches of his feet, kicking up mud and rocks. The soldier dove into a large crater gouged into the battlefield by an artillery-shell blast. He landed in a cloud of chlorine gas pooling in the bottom of the crude hole. It scattered before his boots like weak fog as he tripped over large chunks of earth and slipped in patches of mud. Pressing his mask to his face, the soldier hunkered down as the battle raged on around him.
He tried to take in a full breath through his nose, but the mask held his nostrils clamped shut. His breaths came fast and short. What little air he managed to siphon through the mouthpiece was tinged with charcoal from the respirator-box filter. His skin grew slick with a clammy sweat, and his vision began to go black. If he didn’t regain control, he would pass out in the crater. Closing his eyes, he tapped a beat against his rifle and hummed a song from home—one his mother sang to soothe him when he was a child and frightened. By the second verse, his breathing had slowed, and the light-headedness receded.
Above him, masked soldiers rushed past, firing their rifles and waving the troops behind them forward. Smoke thickened the air, cloaking the setting sun in a sooty shroud. The sky howled with cannon fire and artillery blasts. The ground trembled beneath the bombardment. A fellow infantryman spotted the young soldier and jumped down to join him, but a bullet caught the man beneath his left ear before his head cleared the edge. His limp body slid into the large hole, coming to rest in a twisted pile at the soldier’s feet.
Blood seeped beneath the dead man’s masked head, pooling under the haze of gas lingering in the crater. The young soldier choked back vomit rising in his throat. He couldn’t get sick in his mask, but he also couldn’t risk taking it off. He had to move. He glanced back in the direction of the Allied trenches. If he returned, against military orders, he’d be shot at dawn for cowardice. But if he remained, whether it be by bullet, bomb, or gas, death would find him.
He had one chance: cross no-man’s-land and pray what was left of his battalion could break the enemy line. Clutching his rifle, the soldier climbed from his hiding place and rejoined the firefight. Seventy pounds of uniform, equipment, ammunition, and weapons slowed his pace, and the muddy battlefield tripped up his steps, but the soldier pressed forward. He took cover behind sparse trees, stripped of bark and limbs by bullets and blasts. He ducked into craters to shield himself from the shrapnel of mortar- and artillery-shell blasts, but he never stopped. To stop was to die.
The enemy increased their fire as the battalion neared their trenches. The young soldier’s ears rang with the deafening blasts. Through the eyepieces of his mask, he squinted against the blinding flash of artillery shells exploding and spotted the front-line trenches and helmeted heads of the enemy. The soldier aimed his rifle at a machine gunner and pulled the trigger. He didn’t wait for the man to fall before running forward and aiming his rifle at another German soldier.
As he pulled the trigger, an explosion ripped into the ground before him. The blast tore his rifle from his hands and heaved him into the air. He slammed back to the battlefield with teeth-shattering force. His lungs seized, and his vision blurred. The world around him faded. The gunfire and screams evaporated, and the ringing in his ears quieted, until all that remained was the frantic, uneven beat of his own heart.
It was the last sound he heard.