Rats in the Fog

 

The Western Front 1914

Private Otto Wagner cautiously poked his head above the third tier of sandbags, the only barrier between his high forehead and a French sniper’s bullet. Despite only having served two months in the newly dug trenches of the Western front, he witnessed enough head shot wounds to know that peering over the sandbags when the enemy is just a stone’s throw away, is beyond brash, its plain stupid. Feeling like a petulant child ignoring Mother’s warning, he silenced his inner voice and scanned the length of the enemy trench. He didn’t need to scan too long for what he was risking his life to see. There just a few hundred yards behind the French line was the still smoldering cathedral of Reims.

 

“Hey dumbass, how about crouching down some before I am put in a position of having to scoop your brains up with this shovel,” came a familiar voice from behind.

 

Otto relaxed his strained leg muscles and let his body slide along the smooth black soil of the trenches front wall. He was not the only young soldier to slide his way down along the trench’s wall when the need to take quick cover arrived. He wasn’t sure why this strange ritual of sliding was so popular among the men, but he had a suspicion that his corporal knew why, because every time the thirty-five-year-old Corporal Max Hoffman would witness such a spectacle, he would half smile like a Father watching his son get into some harmless juvenile mischief. It occurred to Otto that most of the fresh recruits in his section of the trench were boys no older than nineteen, and some as young as fifteen. It also occurred to him that sliding down the soft dirt of a trench felt very similar to sliding down an icy winter hill of his hometown, Hamburg Germany, face first on some cardboard, or garbage can lid, with icy cold wind blowing through his auburn hair. With a little embarrassment, and a solemn promise to himself never to slide down the trench side like this again,  he realized that boys fighting in a man’s war remain boys, and he was determined to become a man.

 

“Ok, Ok, Friedrich, I was just curious,” he said with a laugh as he looked at the concerned expression of his good friend, Private Friedrich Konig.

 

But Friedrich was different than most of the smooth faced, barely out of boyhood, troops fighting this war. Friedrich was shaving by thirteen and now, at nineteen, standing over six-foot-tall with corn silk golden hair, bright baby blue eyes, square chin, and a good deal of blood and dirt covering it, he looked like the Keiser himself, just prettier, thought Otto with a hint of rose color spreading across his cheeks. Both young men, just nineteen each, came from the same working-class section of Hamburg. Looking at the enraged face of his friend glowing hot under the red hue of a setting sun, Otto’s life flashed through his mind and his protective friend was in every picture. He recalled countless Summer days fishing along the grassy banks of the Rhine River, throwing rocks at old man Hoffman, the town hermit, and throwing loose change on the ground to get a look up Martha Becker’s skirt at the Hamburg Elementary School playground. Otto smiled at his friend and apologized for his rash behavior. He felt like a child again under the Fatherly gaze of his same aged friend and was once again determined to kill all childish things that still lingered within him.

 

“Ok my friend, sit by me, we have some time before the next attack,” stated Otto, patting the cold October soil of the Reims.

Friedrich placed his back against the wall of the trench and slid down until his backside was planted in the dirt next to his friend.

 

“So, you think another attack is coming Otto?”

 

Otto just looked at him with a blank stare, fighting back the urge to make his friend feel stupid for asking such a question. Everyone in the Company knew that what he lacked in maturity at times, he made up for with a sixth sense for battle. He took great pride in the knowledge that above all others in this two-mile section of the trench, he could smell an attack hours before the horrific event. He also had a reputation for knowing when an artillery barrage was about to come pounding into the trenches, bombs whistling in the air like flocks of giant birds, falling with a buzzing like angry bees, and hitting the ground like a hammer wielded by the hand of a vengeful God. But, and he would never tell a soul, he wasn’t so mesmerized by his ability. In fact, he could scarcely believe that nobody else seemed to catch on yet that attacks generally only happen at dusk and dawn and are generally preceded by an artillery barrage.

 

“Well I guess after some time they will all catch on,” he thought to himself.

 

“Everyone except you Friedrich,” he stated aloud between fits of laughter.

 

“Everyone but me what?” asked his friend with a dumbfounded expression.

 

Otto just continued laughing at his private joke until a soldier in the next section of trench told the boys to shut up because he was trying to get some sleep.

 

“Don’t get too comfortable over there, shouted Friedrich, Otto says that were in for an attack any minute.”

 

Both Otto and Friedrich could hear the boy shuffling around frantically gathering his equipment and standing at the ready—ready for a fight.

 

“The power of the mystical Otto stated Friedrich, laughing between light pats on Otto’s shoulder.

 

“Ok, that’s enough out of you old friend. Hey, you ready for some leave time. I hear that in a few weeks all of us old veterans from the first attack through Belgium are getting some leave time.”

 

“I will believe it when I see it, Otto old boy. I will believe it when I see it. Let me know when the Froggies (French soldiers) start their suicidal attack.” Friedrich rested his head against Otto’s shoulder, closed his eyes, and began a light snoring that brought a strange sense of comfort to Otto.

 

“No need to my friend,” whispered Otto, the falling bombs will wake everyone up in just a few minutes.” Otto watched the sun set in the distance as his heart began to flutter violently in his chest in anticipation of the death to come.

 

Into Battle

 

The barrage began, as it usually does, with a few distant overhead howling sounds followed by equally distant thuds, like large tree branches falling to the ground during a windstorm. Otto, and a few more astute soldiers, laying in the stagnant water of the trench, knew that this was just the enemy artillery troops marking distance. The war was still in its early pupa stages in what was quickly becoming a horrifying transformation. His fellow German troops enjoyed a rapid advance through Belgium just several months before marching to the outskirts of France’s capitol, Paris, but no further progress could be made. Tired troops on the march for weeks without sleep, over extended supply lines, and an unanticipated enemy resolve pushed the Germans back forty miles to the Aisne river. With nowhere left to go, except back to Germany in shameful defeat, Otto, his five closest friends, his Company, and about one million Germans began digging what some would call home for the next four years, and others would call their grave.

 

“Oh, great just when I was having the most marvelous dream about Martha Becker,” came the low moaning voice of Friedrich.

 

“Rise and shine Romeo, Martha and her crusty drawers will have to wait until you get your leave time,” replied Otto, smiling at the thought of ruining his friends dream by implanting the image of Martha holding out crusty underwear, with a seductive look in her baby blue eyes.

 

As if reading Otto’s mind, Friedrich reached up and playfully slapped Otto along his tightly fastened helmet and said, “thanks for the lovely image you little daisy.”

 

You little daisy was an expression Friedrich used quite often with Otto. He was referring to Otto’s peculiar soft nature in the face of brutality and blood. During more serious times, he would affectionately compliment on Otto’s ability to “retain the soul of a poet,” as he would say.

 

The moaning sounds of the French artillery shells changed to sharp whistles, reminding Otto of a pleasant evening watching fireworks with his Mother and Father along the river Rhine what seemed like a lifetime ago. But now, in the rat-infested trenches, the sharp whistle meant death, the enemy found their mark and were raining in bombs that would shatter into a thousand pieces, sending hot metal splicing through the cold October air, searching for warm flesh to shred.

 

Otto and Friedrich did all that they could do in this situation. They frantically dug further into the foul-smelling soil and hoped that a shell did not land on their position. Neither soldier, even the so-called clairvoyant Otto, could predict when the shelling would stop. Otto recalled the first night when his section of trench was being hastily dug and fortified with as much good timber that was brought to the front, following the decision to dig in for dear life. The French halted their advance, being just as overextended, hungry, and exhausted as the retreating Germans. That night was their first taste of an artillery barrage, a night of flashing lights, sharp whistles, ear shattering explosions, and the image of what the human body looks like from the inside out.

 

Otto screamed loudly knowing that not even Friedrich, the man he looked up to, could hear his screams over the bombs exploding just behind the parados (rear wall of the trench).

As he screamed, a handful sized portion of wet dark soil flew into his mouth and down the back of his throat making him choke and his stomach churn.

 

“Hold it together old boy,” he thought, “Just hold it together.”

 

After what seemed like days, but was only two hours, the shelling stopped, but nobody felt any sense of comfort at this momentary lull. The young boys up and down the line, not naïve enough to believe that the enemy would expend so much ammunition and then calmly sit down to breakfast and cigarettes. The artillery barrage was an opening act for a macabre chapter of a senseless play. Otto and Friederich, without looking down the line for fallen comrades, crawled to the top of the parapet and placed their bolt action Gewehr 88’s overlooking the one-hundred-yard gap between their trench and the enemies (no man’s land).

 

Otto felt his body shake telling himself it was from the cold evening air, and not from the anticipation of falling French artillery shells. He tried to convince himself that it was the cold ground beneath him that filled him with nervous discomfort, and not the thick darkness laced with fog directly to his front. He even tried to ignore the eerie deafening sound of silence with thoughts of his Mother, standing over a hot stove making potato pancakes and humming her favorite tune with the voice of an angel.  But to no avail, the fear brought his mind back to the reality of the trench. He slowly retracted the bolt of his rifle making sure that a round was firmly in place. They waited in the dark, because what else was there to do?

 

Both soldiers were relieved when another of the five musketeers noisily plopped himself next to Friedrich with a loud clinking sound. Otto was aware of what this distinctive metal against metal sound signified. Paul Fischer, the crazy man from the Black Forest and the best Maschinengewehr 08 machine gunner in the Company. This piece of weaponry was the saving grace of the defensive position. At firing over five hundred round per minute, any soldier would feel safer laying beside such a weapon of destruction.

 

“Hey girls,” said Paul laughing as he placed his machine gun on its heavy metal stand.

 

“Ok, in all seriousness, my assistant gunner was decapitated during the bombardment and I need one of you to feed me ammunition and piss on the barrel if it gets too hot.”

 

Otto and Friedrich just stared at Paul for a moment in disbelief. Who would ever have thought they would hear the words “my assistant was decapitated” as if he were talking about dropping his sandwich in the mud?

 

“Hey, you two, make a decision before the swarm of angry French bees charges right for our beady little Hun eyes. The Germans were called the Huns by the enemy, and not in a way to signify respect or compliment.

 

“Otto, you do it,” whispered Friederich into his still ringing ear. “I don’t think my hands are steady enough to load that steel beast fast enough.”

 

Otto agreed but was not fooled by his friend’s explanation. He looked at his friends’ hands and not surprisingly, they were steady like two solid slabs of rock. But this attempt at deception did not anger Otto. His friend was sparing him from having to take more human life than was necessary because every life you obliterate takes a tiny piece of a person’s soul in payment.

 

Otto crawled between Friedrich and Paul and prepared the Fifteen two hundred and fifty round clips for the machine gun. He did not neglect to drink a few sip-full of warm water from his canteen. The remark about pissing on the barrel of the gun was not another typical Fischer joke. When the barrel of a machine gun became red hot the metal parts began to melt, fuse, and bend in shape. Sometimes a good little stream of urine was just what was needed to cool the barrel and fire off the last remaining life-saving clips of ammunition.

 

Charge

 

“Here they come,” shouted Otto, as he stared straight into the strange alien green glow, cast by a French flare. The green of the flare mixed with the heavy fog gave no man’s land a colorful luminescence that reminded him of pictures he had seen as a boy of the aurora borealis. The first wave of French infantry pierced the fog with bayonets fixed to their rifles, screaming an incoherent war cry that sounded more like a death throe and less like a hope for victory. The war had become an endless series of artillery barrages, charges against a wall of enemy fire, the occasional hand to hand bloody fighting, and endless days of lonely boredom in between. Otto was sure that this charge, like all others, would only end in more corpses between trenches, more fresh meat for the resident vermin to feast upon.

 

“Get ready with another clip,” shouted Paul amidst the pattering of machine gun fire, intermittent pop shots of bolt action rifles, and screaming of the falling French soldiers just yards from the top of his trench. Otto loaded clip after clip while watching dozens of men being torn apart by the Germans bullets. But this was no time to feel good about the one-sided situation. His comrades have yet to make a charge since digging in at Reims, but his time would come. He felt sick as he realized that he was not watching anything else but a glimpse of his own future, like peering into a large hazy crystal ball with splatters of blood and gore smeared upon its inner glass.

 

“Ha, Ha, look at them fall,” shouted Paul with enough vocal girth to drown out the sounds of slaughter.

 

“Apparently Paul did not see the unfolding butchery as a look into the future,” thought Otto with a just a touch of envy.

 

“How nice it must be to flick a switch inside oneself and function with a single-minded purpose,” he thought.

 

“Yea, Otto look at them run!”

 

Otto looked ahead and could see the backs of the enemy trying to outrun the swarm of German bullets chasing them down with indiscrimination, as the wounded and dead are left until morning, or maybe for weeks. At times, civility would show its noble face and an agreement after a charge made between both forces, to collect the wounded, bury the dead, and even share some coffee or smokes before resuming with normal duties. However, as he considered not for the first time, as the war drags on civility itself will be left to die in agony in the middle of a foreign field. His suspicions were confirmed the next day when no attempt was made to rescue the dying from the previous night.

 

“Ok guys, I’m going to get some shut eye at the dug-out,” stated Paul, as he disassembled his gun and staggered away down the length of trench, into the growing fog, to the squad dug-out. Otto thought he saw a large dark red stain on the back of Paul’s shirt just below the right collar bone but thought nothing more of it. Paul would not be walking if he was hit in such an area by a French bullet.

 

Otto and Friedrich stayed in position throughout the following day in silence, watching a French boy slowly cease crying for his Mother holding his spilled guts together with soft boyish hands.

 

The Charge

 

Otto crouched low to avoid bumping his against the low overhang to the first squad dugout. Although part of the same Army, in the trenches, during long stretches of calm, civilian habits of preferences and exclusion, reared their ugly heads. Troops from the same hometown, school, and neighborhood would flock together as birds of a same feather, on constant guard against those considered “on the outside of the flock.”

 

During battle, these walls crumbled in the face of the enemy exploding shells and replaced with the needed solidarity to ensure or, in the least, to offer hope of victory. The shelling was finished, the attack repulsed, and the time for a successful counterattack long passed, now it was time to crawl back underground.

 

The dugout he shared with ten other soldiers is no more than ten feet wide, twelve feet in length, and an impressive fifteen feet below the surface of the trench floor. Otto walked into the hideaway remembering the labor involved in its creation. His entire squad pitched in, some gathering whatever wood to be found as support, others shoveling the soft French soil with fury, and others, carrying away bucketsful of dirt and filth as fast as they were coming out. It took ten men five full days to complete their home away from home, and only first squad had rights to its advantages. Other soldiers, loners, less than motivated, or just too scared, ended up sleeping under the stars or in hastily dug holes no bigger than the size of an average man and offering very little protection from flying shrapnel and razor-sharp pieces of wood.

 

“Hey, there he is. Glad to see you survived.” Old machine gun Paul said you are one hell of an assistant. Must have been one hell of a sight watching those French ripped to shreds just a stone toss from your position.” The lighting was poor in the dugout, but Otto didn’t need to see the person responsible for the remark. That squeaky adolescent voice could belong to no other than Private Werner Schmidt. Otto sat down in the middle of the floor next to the small fire that was normally kept burning most of the night. The temperature, fifteen feet below the surface was always a few degrees warmer than the top and even three or four men sleeping in the dugout raised the temperature to comfortable levels. The continuous camp fire was more for rat control purposes. Otto thought about the rats with a chill crawling up and down the length of his spine. As the dead increased in numbers so did the rats, and the lice, and the scabies, and every other parasite and germ devised by nature. But the rats were the worst, and this was the consensus of every soldier in any trench, German, French, British, or Russian. They would crawl on soldiers as they slept, steal food out of the hands of a weary troop, swarm over a corpse before a proper burial, and carry parasites that tormented a man day and night with microscopic jaws that bit into the flesh.

 

Otto looked away from the fire and buried his troubling thoughts of the vermin and scanned the faces of the other four of his click, sullenly sitting around the fire.

 

Friederich Konig, his best friend, the man he looked up to for guidance. The man he saw as a rock—steady and reliable in a raging ocean of blood and guts. They went to school together, played hooky together, fought together, chased girls together, and more importantly, told each other things that neither boy could tell anyone else. Like the time that Otto lost his favorite dog Hansie when he was just seven years old. He remembered finding old Hansie laying in the yard under a blaring July sun, tongue protruding from his mouth and a greenish yellow froth puddling under his snout. Hansie was just three and Otto always suspected his old hag widowed neighbor Mrs. Shultz of poisoning him. She always bitched and moaned about his barking. But Friederich was there with a shoulder to cry on when his own Father looked him sternly in the eye and said, “Its just a dog you little cry baby. Be a good little soldier and stop your crying.” He was sure that both he and Friederich would survive the war and always be best friends.

 

There was Private Paul Fischer directly across from the fire, looking like a demon as the flames made his face glow red. This was fitting to Otto since Paul’s personality was certainly not one forged by the angels. Otto could see how the war transformed boys into hardened killers. But Paul could take it too the next level. It is one thing to tear a dozen men into shreds with a machine gun, it is quite another to achieve an erection while doing such butchers work, but he was part of the group. Without him, more than half of the Company would be dead or just as good as dead. He worked that machine gun like a painter works her brushes and paints. Nobody knew much else about his home life, other than he was from the Black Forest region, the only son of a butcher and his much younger wife. A man good for war but with a lowered mentality and not good for much else.

 

To Paul’s left sits Private Werner Schmidt. Otto couldn’t help smiling each time he looked at Werner, with his two large protruding ears attached to a small round head, containing two slightly crossed eyes, and a crooked pointed nose. However, he was member of the group because despite those crooked eyes he was the Company sniper with the ability to shoot the wart off a frog’s ass at a hundred yards, maybe two hundred Otto thought. To match his expert shooting, Werner was also just as brave, if not braver than any other man in the Company. He would rise before anyone in the dugout, long before sunrise to crawl into no man’s land searching for the perfect sniping position. Snipers were rare to come by for two reasons. First, because not everyone possesses the gift of a steady aim and hawk like vision. Second, because the life span of a sniper was short.

 

Otto looked to his right and watched Private Hermann Becker as he stared deeply into the flames. He was also a fellow schoolmate from the old meat packing Hamburg school. That’s what they called school these days in Germany, meat packers, because every teacher too old to fight had no qualms with talking every able-bodied boy to put on a uniform and go to the trenches. They were meat packagers providing fresh meat for the grinder of the front, and not just one front in the West. Just a few days back word came up the line that trenches were being hastily dug on the Eastern front facing the Russians.

 

Private Hermann Becker, Otto thought, was as just as dark as Paul but in a much subtler, disconcerting way. Paul made no attempt to hide his arousal with the site of destruction. Hermann killed with closed unmoving lips, steady breath, and unshaking hands . His countenance was that of a professional servant, dealing out death because it was his duty and not his pleasure, but his eyes gave away the brewing storm beneath. If one were to watch his eyes as he jabbed a bayonet into an enemy’s guts, one would see a glimmer of sunshine on a field of dead grey, a highlight on a dark landscape. Not surprising to Otto, nobody knew much about Private Becker’s home life. Some say that his Father was a surgeon in Berlin and wished the same for his son, and that Hermann came here by choice. Otto, and most others found this rumor to be ridiculous. Who would ever volunteer to come to a place like this instead of medical school? Otto asked this question in his mind as he watched the shadow of the flames dance across Hermann’s profile, and was not certain any longer how foolish the rumor was.

 

“Oh, there goes Otto looking around analyzing the whole group again,” came the voice of his best friend.”

 

“No, he’s looking for some inspiration for his poetry,” stated Paul. Otto heard the other soldiers in the squad laughing behind him. He turned around with his face just a few inches from Paul’s bare backside.

 

“Here’s some inspiration for a poem old boy,” exclaimed Paul! As everyone laughed, choked on their food, and rolled on the ground like pigs wallowing happily in a field of mud. This was life in the dugout. Everyone respected, protected, and ridiculed everyone within range. Otto laughed with the rest of his group, feeling like he never felt so much in the civilian world, he felt like he belonged.

 

“Attention group,” came a loud guttural shout, followed by the towering bulky frame of Corporal Max Hoffman.

All ten dirty and tired soldiers stood as statues upon hearing the Corporals voice. They all met Corporals, Captains, and Majors before today, but none received as much respect as Corporal Max Hoffman. He made no hesitation in explaining to the ten new arrivals that he was in charge. Otto remembered that speech just months ago before they thrust through the picturesque Belgium frontier.

 

“So, I have been given the dubious honor of leading you into battle. Fresh shit just out of the military training academy. Well let me tell you boys, you forget what you have learned. I am about to give you a tour of your home for the next…Corporal Hoffmann casually took his timepiece from his pocket…Oh, I would say the next several years. Its not much of a home. In fact, it’s the worst place on earth. I am forty-two and asked to be here. I left a productive farm, a half decent looking wife, and more sheep and horses than any farm this side of the Rhine River.”

 

All ten recruits knew this to be an exaggeration, especially since several of the boys already made this erroneous claim, but no one dared call out the Corporal on his boast. He towers over the recruits both vertically and horizontally, standing over six feet tall with the hard-chiseled body of someone all too unfamiliar with sitting in a schoolhouse.

 

“Now, I may sound hard and tough, not unlike some of your Fathers, but I am here to keep you alive, at least long enough until the next batch of green recruits graduate from the girl’s school military training academy. He laughed after this insult, no doubt in Otto’s mind, as he relished the shocked expressions of his audience.

 

This was their first encounter with the Fatherly Corporal Hoffmann, and every day he made good his promise to care for his children.

 

“Ok listen up men. At ease, at ease.”

 

Everyone gathered around the dying fire as the Corporal spoke.

 

“First, get some damn wood on that fire. You fellas will freeze to death before morning or eaten by rats. I want you all nice and toasty and well rested for our dawn attack tomorrow.”

 

Otto scanned the faces of his comrades and for once could not read individual stirrings of emotion beneath the surface. It was as if the threat of a new offensive was enough to frighten all other emotions back into the deepest recesses of the mind, leaving nothing but an empty field of grey. Otto laughed at his own thoughts on the matter. He often became frustrated with his own flights of poetic fancy, but he could not shake the feeling that he could see each man in the dugout silently letting go and accepting their own death hours before the event.

 

“We were hit hard today with the artillery and attack, and we should have attacked as they retreated, but the powers that be decided we weren’t ready.”

 

Corporal Hoffmann leaned his enormous girth toward the eager ears of the group, cupped his left hand to the corner of his mouth and whispered, “the truth is command was unprepared for the attack.”

 

He straightened himself and resumed his normal commanding tone, “So tomorrow at dawn we rush over the ramparts and take the French front-line trench. Our own artillery bombardment will begin five hours before dawn.” He laughed and whispered again, “Just to let them know were coming.”

 

“I will be with you all the way until I may fall myself somewhere in no mans land. I don’t want any of you stopping. You press on until you hit that trench. You throw your grenades, fire a single round, and jump in with shovels and bayonets and start hacking away.”

 

Without another word, Max exited the entrance of the trench knowing that each man knew the preparations to be made. Without speaking, every man retreated to their own space, cleaning rifles, wiping down ammunition, sharpening small shovel’s and bayonets, writing letters to loved ones, and trying to get some sleep just as the German artillery began the preparation bombardment for the next assault.

 

Over the Trench Wall

 

Otto did not sleep that night. Most of the other men attempted to sleep, but very few could find refuge in unconsciousness with the sound of roaring guns, and the knowledge of uncertainty hanging heavy over their heads.

 

He looked at his four threes, Friedrich, Paul, and Hermann, and was glad that he met all of them, regardless of what was to come, at least he had that. He looked around the dimly lit room as the fire died with its last sizzles and spurts and could not find Private Schmidt. But he remembered that Werner Schmidt would already be out in no mans land having found a spot to snipe Frenchmen, like an eagle on his perch scanning the horizon for the weak and forgetful. He would look for the officer fool enough to poke his head too far over the top of the trench, the soldier panicking and trying to run away toward the safety of their second line of defense, and the machine gunners unaware that their mound of protective sandbags have withered away by bullets, exposing the gunner and his assistant. He would fire one round for each of these poor devils and with that one shot, send them to oblivion.

 

The shelling stopped, the whistles blared, the tarp to the entrance to the dugout flung aside, Corporal Hoffman standing just inside the darkened space…”Lets move it out, in positions men, do you want to live forever?”

 

If you were to ask these questions under normal conditions, the answer would be yes, but in no mans land, there was no time to think.

 

Otto and the others rushed out into the soft orange light of the rising sun, and took their positions leaning against the wall of the trench. He found himself right next to one of the wooden ladders, wet and rotting and covered in moss. The whistle sounded followed by shouts up and down the line, “Over the top men, don’t stop until you reach their line.”

 

Without thinking, Otto scaled the ladder and tripped over the edge of the trench. He quickly pulled himself off the ground so as not too be trampled by dozens of others scaling the ladder. He ran into the cloud of smoke and debris kicked around by the recent shelling of their heavy guns far behind the infantry line. His throat burned each time he swallowed what little sticky spit lined the inside of his dirt caked mouth. The dust began to clear.

 

“How far did I run,” he thought, “it must have been a mile or more by now, Am I lost?”

 

The enemy trench was just a hundred yards from his starting position, but was obscured by a cloud of dust, making each man disoriented and unsure of direction. As if reading his mind, he heard the voice of Corporal Hoffman behind him, cut off in mid-sentence…”Just keep running straight ahe…Pop, pop, pop, the sound of three distinct rifle shots and the voice of Corporal Hoffman no more.

 

 Otto looked to his left and right and watched several men hit the ground as red mist filled the air.

 

Machine gun fire, enemy artillery lobbing shells to stop the advance.

 

“I must be close. I must be close.” He shouted.

 

Otto could now make out the blue silhouettes of the enemy soldiers just a few feet to his front. He kept running until the ground seemed to fall beneath his feet as if opening wide to suck him into the bowels of hell itself. He fell inside a large crater made by the previous nights shelling. Along with Otto, three more soldiers fell into the same hole.

 

Otto scanned the frightened faces and did not recognize these men. He wished that at least one of his friends were here with him, but there was no time to think about that.

 

“Why haven’t I seen you three before today,: he asked, feeling stupid immediately after. The trenches were constantly shifting like a sea of new faces, two new ones to replace every dead or wounded.

 

“We just came up last night from the reserve trench,” stated a small blonde-haired blue-eyed boy with the unblemished feminine face of a dirt streaked porcelain doll.

 

“Jesus Christ your just babies,” replied Otto, feeling like his Father.

 

“Ok listen, I don’t care about how the attack is going, because if we stay here, we are going to die. All three of us are going to climb to the edge of this hole and throw one grenade as hard as we can straight ahead, then we move out into their trench. Let’s go!”

 

Otto did not give any of the boy’s time to think, knowing that a moment to think in battle is a sure-fire way to invite cowardice into the soul.

 

The boys followed Otto to the edge of the crater, pulled the pins on their grenades, and threw as hard as their shaking arms would allow.

 

“Over the top let’s go! Shouted Otto, as the boys followed screaming a cracked pubescent war cry.

 

Otto jumped first into the trench landing and slipping on the mess made by the four grenades. He felt exhilaration when he tripped over the broken metal of a large caliber machine gun. The concussion and flying shrapnel of the grenades tore apart six enemy soldiers and effectively put a machine gun out of commission. His euphoria did not last long as he heard the bright-eyed boy screaming from behind. Otto turned and watched an enemy soldiers bayonet jutting from the front of the screaming porcelain boy. Otto raised his rifle remembering that there was still one round seated in the chamber. He squeezed the trigger sending a whizzing piece of metal past the dying boys head and into the left side of the enemy just above the French soldier’s eye. He watched, as if in slow motion, bits of polished bone mingled with pieces of bloody meat fly through the dusty air. He was not certain if the other two boys survived, but there was no time to consider another’s fate.

 

Otto ran to his right along the length of the trench running into his fellow comrades, some still struggling in hand to hand fighting, some lying on the ground with large gashes spewing blood, and others just too tired to do anything but stand and stare at the opposite wall of the trench.

 

Otto continued running, occasionally helping a fellow soldier by smashing his shovel into the skull of an enemy. He finally came to the unoccupied command center of the trench and found Friederich lying on his side holding his arm. Otto quickly raced to his side and immediately began bandaging his wound.

 

“Otto, I better not lose my arm. I’d rather die than lose this arm”

 

“Come on my friend, we did our job, back to our home.”

 

Having fulfilled the mission, driving the French to fall back to their second line of defense, having pilfered any remaining enemy food and water, and securing any compromising documentation, Otto carried Friedrich made their way back to their line, other soldiers limping ahead, and behind.

 

Aftermath

 

  “Here you go my friend,” said Otto, as he dragged Friedrich to the edge of the German trench. He laid down on Friedrichs opposite side and pushed his friend over the edge to the muddy ground of the trench floor below. Otto knew this was the only way since many a soldier from both sides met their end with a stray bullet to the back leisurely climbing over their own wall.

   Friedrich let out a loan moan as the open wound on his arm scrapped across the protruding rocks and twigs lining the side of the trench.

 

   “Sorry, Fred old boy,” stated Otto, with indifferent manliness mixed with a touch of feminine concern for the pain he caused his friend.

 

  Otto slid down the side of the trench resting next to Friedrich. The brief period of relaxation behind the protection of the trench walls offered both soldiers a chance to better understand the situation.

 

   “I don’t hear anything?” said Friedrich.

 

  Otto listened expecting the familiar sounds of machine gun fire, explosions, and never-failing screams of the wounded and dying. He decided not to speak another thought out load unless his friend think he was insane. He sniffed the air once more to confirm his suspicions. There was no smell. Not a hint of gunpowder, blood, or death permeated the olfactory senses.

 

   “And look at this fog Otto.” “Did you ever see a fog this thick?”

 

  Otto looked around at the fog, that seemed to grow thicker with each passing moment. He was not alarmed that this strange fog may be gas. Both soldiers were aware of what poisonous gas looked like. This fog had a strange bluish tint intermixed within its normal white and yellowish color.

 

“If this was gas,” stated Otto, “we would be dead by now.”

 

   “No doubt replied Friedrich. “I thought maybe the froggies were using a new type of gas, but as you said, we would have felt the effects by now.

 

  “Hey, by the way Otto old boy, where the hell is everyone?”

 

  For the first time since crawling into the trench, Otto felt anxious. The lack of smell he could attribute to any number of psychological manifestations brought about by combat stress. Soldiers were known to lose sight and hearing despite no physical signs of injury. Why not the sense of smell. He could also rationalize the strange blue tinted fog as some atmospheric phenomenon, a unique mixture of temperature, smoke, dust, and powder. But the absence of boys screaming for their Mothers, and quite a few grown men, looking for that final glimpse of Mom as their life blood ran in rivers along the trench floor, that cannot be explained.

 

  “Friedrich you stay here while I go down the trench to have a look.”

 

  Without waiting for a reply, Otto reached into Friedrichs blood smeared satchel at his side and placed his gas mask on his face. He no longer felt so confident that the fog was nothing more than a harmless environmental effect. He took a piece of bandage from his own pocket, caked with the dirt from No Man’s Land, and wrapped as much of Friedrichs wound as possible. Finally, he left his extra ammunition and canteen half full of warm water and turned to walk into the strange blue fog.

 

   Otto walked cautiously down the length of the trench expecting to trip over the dead and dying bodies that characterize the after math of every battle. He could no longer see for more than a few inches in front of his face, as if the fog grew thicker with each careful step.

 

  “I don’t feel anything beneath my feet,” came a voice from deep within his mind, sending shivers up his spine, and stopping him in his tracks. Afraid to move another step because it felt as if he were not walking on a solid surface. He bent down and placed his hand on the ground half expecting his hand to disappear into an endless void or to break the surface of some strange liquid. He closed his eyes and smiled as his hand touched the dirt floor of the trench.

 

  “Get it together idiot,” he stated out loud, as he straightened up and continued walking blindly through the strange fog. He made a fast-mental calculation based on his number of steps in relation to where he left his wounded friend.

 

  “Oh, Friedrich please don’t bleed out until I get back.” He felt strange hearing himself utter these words, but death in the trenches was as natural as eating and using a latrine. His only hope was that he could be there for his friend, hold his hand, and give some comfort as his friend slipped away into the hands of death.

 

  Otto shook away these thoughts and guessed that he was near his squads dug out. That place of temporary refuge enjoyed just before the mess of battle resumed. He guessed that just another ten to thirty feet, to the right, and he would reach the opening. He stumbled just a few feet to his right, still expecting to fall through the bottom of the unseen floor and placed his hand along the trench wall. He walked another few feet, heart leaping violently in his chest as the trench wall seemed to give way. He stumbled into the sought after dug, out falling into the dark void and unto the dirt floor.

  “Otto, our hero returns,” came the voice of Werner Schmidt.

 

  Otto closed his eyes tightly for a few moments to sharpen his night vision, a little trick he learned from the late Corporal Hoffman. 

 

  He opened his eyes and scanned the darkened room. He felt a wave of relief pass through him as he looked at the familiar faces of Werner Schmidt, Hermann Becker, and Paul Fischer.

 

  Each soldier took their turn expressing their joy at having another member of the old circle alive, and as healthy as can be under such circumstances.

 

  “Where is Friedrich,” asked Werner.

 

 Otto’s face reddened with the thought of forgetting about his friend, still outside bleeding, maybe dying, in that blue fog.

  “He’s just a little way to the left of the entrance. He’s wounded badly in the arm; we need to bring him back here at once.

“You did enough for today my friend,” stated Hermann Becker, walking toward Otto. With a gentle tap on Otto’s shoulder he said, “I will go bring him back, don’t worry about a thing,” Hermann walked out the into the thick fog that glowed eerily in the rays of the sun beaming through the entrance of the dugout.

 

 Otto closed his exhausted eyes and his world went dark.

 

A Thickening Fog

 

 Otto could here talk in the distance imagining the voices of his friends somewhere far off beyond the fog outside. He was conscious but unable to yet open his eyes as he struggled to move his arms and legs. He felt a heaviness on his chest and struggled to take deep breaths, but still unable to move. Each time he tried to force his eyes open, he could only do so for a few seconds each time as though lead weights rested on the lids. Finally, after several minutes he was able to force his arms and legs to move, his breathing resumed normally, and he opened his eyes.

 

   “Ah, sleeping beauty awakes,” came the scratchy adolescent voice of Hermann Becker. “Don’t worry, I got your little lover, Friedrich.”

 

 Otto listened to the laughter of his circle, as he struggled to his feet, feeling comforted that the important ones to him survived the assault, and they were, as he thought, in normal smart-ass operating mode.

 

 Otto scanned the room and saw his friends sitting around the fire in the same positions as the night before the battle. This scene also brought a feeling of comfort to him. He took his place next to Friederich.

 

  “How is that arm old man?”

 

   “Check it out for yourself, barely a scratch.”

 

  Otto looked at the bandage on Friederichs arm with eyes wide as if in shock. He expected to see down to the bone based on the amount of blood he thought he saw on the bandage before leaving him in the fog.

 

   As if reading Otto’s mind, he said, “I know, I thought it was much worse. I’m sorry for making you carry me based on such a superficial wound, but believe me my friend, I really couldn’t walk out there on my own volition.”

 

   Otto felt mixed feelings. On the one hand, he was tempted to punch Friedrich square in the nose for making him risk his own life carrying him. But on the other, he was also deceived by the severity of the wound.

 

    “It’s OK, you don’t have to justify yourself to me Friedrich. I was fooled by the amount of blood also.”

 

   “Hey you two. You’re not the only ones under this mass illusion. I saw Paul walk in here We thought he was a dead man walking with all that blood on his back. Does he look dead to you?”

 

   Otto looked at Paul and remembered how he thought he watched him receive a bullet to the back, but here he was, warming himself by the fire, as comfortable and unscathed as a fresh recruit at the academy.

 

   Otto could not account for any of these strange events, but as a practical person, he could not deny, or complain with the facts…we are all alive.

 

   “So, what now guys, anyone think they will counter attack?” “Is that fog or gas?” “Should we look for the command bunker?”

 

  These were the words of Werner, that met with silence. Nobody in the group huddled around the fire knew what to do. Corporal Hoffman was the one with the answers and Otto watched him die just a few hours before, and always uncomfortable with a leadership position, it did not look to him like anyone was stepping up to take the role.

 

  “Ok, we are all privates here, stated Otto, but we need to act as one. I don’t see any need for an elected leader. Does everyone agree?”

 

  Each of the boys looked to the one to his left and right. Nobody raised a voice of objection to Otto’s suggestion. Friedrich spoke first.

 

  “I agree with Otto. Let’s get the strict Prussian idea of hierarchy out of our heads, at least for the time being. I vote we send a scout to assess the situation and immediately report back.”

 

   “I will go,” said Hermann Becker, picking up his rifle, adjusting his helmet, and taking his gas mask from its satchel at his side.”

 

 “You wont need that, replied Otto. It doesn’t appear to be a poisonous cloud out there.”

 

 “No, interjected Friedrich. We better be safer than dead later. Put on your mask and stick to the side of the trench. Blow this whistle if you become disoriented and lost.”

 

  Friederich stood up and placed a silver whistle around Herrmann’s neck.

 

  “Why don’t we all go,” said Paul.

 

 Otto gave Paul a look of disapproval, shaking his head slowly from left to right. Everyone in the group knew why everyone should not go out together. If this was a new type of gas or if a French counter attack ensued, it was better one dead than all five. Just another harsh unspoken reality of warfare.

 

  “Go ahead old boy,” stated Fredrich with a gentle pat on Herrmann’s shoulder.

 

 Hermann nodded and walked outside disappearing into the blueish tinted fog.

 

 The group sat in nervous silence. Some looking into the fire like soothe Sayers reading the future in the flickering flames. Otto began disassembling his rifle and wiping down the parts still caked with the rich black soil of the front. Nobody spoke as if to say a single misplaced word or phrase would curse Hermann and his brave mission to breach the mysterious fog.

 

Several hours of silence past, only broken by the rumbling of Werner’s stomach. This normally innocent sound, one among many bodily sounds heard in any dugout at the front, both friendly and otherwise, gave an opportunity for Otto to break the silence.

 

“How are we on food?”

 

Each soldier checked their satchels and placed the contents on the ground. Each looked on with wide eyes of concern at the absence of a single morsel of food.

 

“Let’s check our canteens,” said Friederich.

“Half full.”

“Empty.”

“A few drops.”

“Half.”

 

“Well we can’t stay here any longer,” stated Paul Fischer. “We have to assume that Hermann is gone.”

 

This statement added just enough pressure to the already growing tension of the dugout.

 

“How the fuck could you say that!” shouted Friedrich. “Just like you to give up on a man for your own selfish convenience.” Friedrich continued to advance toward Paul, now standing in shock, but with shoulders squared and ready to pounce like a tiger released from its cage. Friedrichs voice was cut down with a loud thump as Paul’s head slammed into his chest. Both boys rolled on the ground, back and forth swinging wildly as each punch made a thump with each connection of knuckles on flesh.

 

Otto and Werner stood in amazement watching the fight unfold.

 

“Let’s break this up,” said Otto looking across the fire, at the rolling bodies silhouetted by the flames of the camp fire.

 

“Maybe we should just let them get it out of their system,’ replied Werner.

 

Just as Otto bent down grabbing Friedrich by his dirt stained collar, Hermann staggered into the dug out falling with a thud to the floor, kicking up a puff of dust. The fighting duo stopped swinging and ran over to Hermann. Otto, the closest to the entrance was already peeling the gas mask off his face. Werner remained frozen in place visibly shaking from all the stressful events of the past few hours.

 

“Ok give him some room,” stated Otto.

 

The boys gave Hermann his space and watched as he gasped for breath in between long gulps of his canteen. After several minutes past and Herrmann’s breath returned to a normal rhythm, Otto asked, “Hermann, what did you see?”

 

Hermann remained silent staring straight ahead with his back pressed hard against the dug-out wall. He looked to Otto like someone who has seen the ghost of a dead relative hovering lazily above their bed. Hermann turned to Otto and said, “Nothing.” “I saw nothing.”

 

“He’s lost it. He completely lost it,” said Werner.

 

Friedrich gave Werner a warning glance. A glance that said, “we can go again at any time.”

 

Otto recognized this gesture and set out determined to change the tone of conversation.

 

“Ok, so he didn’t see anything. We all know Hermann for the reliable old fellow he is” He smiled and crouched down leveling his face with the perspiring Hermann. “Old steady like a rock Hermann.” “old battle-hardened Hermann.”

 

This gesture among warriors seemed to soothe Herrmann’s anxiety. He smiled at Otto, took a deep breath and recounted his adventure in the fog. All remained silent and listened with a warning from Otto not to interrupt until Hermann finished.

 

Hermann began, “I was only gone a few minutes, but I couldn’t stay out there any longer.”

 

Otto held up a figure to his lips when he saw that Friedrich was about to interrupt. Hermann was gone for hours, and although nobody held a timepiece, the unspoken consensus was that four guys could not be simultaneously wrong on the time.

 

Hermann continued uninterrupted, “So I kept my back close to the wall of the trench. It seemed that each inch I creeped along, the fog became thicker, and so did that blue tint mixed within the fog but more like a bluish mist within the fog. I’ve never seen anything like that. “So, I kept going, suffocating in this dammed thing,” he slammed the mask to the floor.

 

Paul interrupted, “Did you take the mask off?”

 

Hermann looked to his hands wresting on top of his lap. He was afraid to look at his friends and this was obvious to all present. He needn’t give an answer to the question, and nobody was prepared to fault him for removing the mask. Every soldier in the middle of a gas attack will tell the same tale. The stifling heat, the stinging sweat pouring into the eyes, the dry cracking throat begging for just a drop of water. The poisonous gas sticking to the outside lens like a hungry rat staring at the moist exposed flesh of the eyes. But worst of all, the ever-present fear of the enemy rushing with sharpened bayonets to one’s front, and the unseen threat of a broken seal around the mask inviting just enough gas in to slowly choke you to death.

 

“Go on Hermann, continue,” said Otto.

 

Hermann continued, “I kept walking as far as I could. I’m surprised you didn’t hear me calling for the commander, or anyone, who was alive. But nobody came. I walked on, the fog growing thicker with each step. I walked slower because it felt as if the ground were not even real.” He laughed a nervous laugh and looked to the group for a response. Everybody looked back with nothing but expressions of understanding, as if the feeling of a ground that was not really there was a sheared experience.

 

Hermann continued, “I felt the ground with my hand, and it was there but somehow too smooth, like glass still in the hardening process, a delicate solid surface covering a hot liquid center.”

 

“I felt that same thing on my way stumbling here.” replied Paul.

 

“Wait a minute. What do you mean stumbling here? Where you wounded shit head and said nothing,” asked Friedrich.

 

“Why is that so important. Keep it up Freddy old boy and I will give you another thrashing of your life.”

 

“Any time idiot,” replied Friedrich.

 

“ Ok there is no time for this crap,” stated Otto. “And yea Fischer, why didn’t you mention any wound.”

 

“Ok I will tell you why. Yes, it’s strange that Friedrich received, as you say again, a mortal wound to the arm. But I see two guys unscathed. You seem to be making that into some grand supernatural miracle or some shit, but not me. I didn’t see any reason to feed your delusion any more juice.”

 

“Fair enough, said Friedrich, what about you Werner, any phantom wounds.”

 

“I thought I was bayoneted in the leg when I reached the French trench. So, I was wrong, the bastard just tore my pants leg to shreds.” Werner lifted his left leg with his knee just above the naval. Just below the knee cap the group could see a large piece of his pants leg torn away exposing dirty, yet unbroken skin.

 

Nobody said a word, but Otto considered that eventually Hermann would have to be put to some questions concerning his own imaginary wounds, but that could wait until after his story.

 

“Continue Hermann, “you won’t be interrupted again, said Otto.

 

“So, I just kept crawling along but could not find any bodies or other dugouts. I tell you, I may have only crawled along for a few minutes, but I should have encountered someone. I couldn’t even hear sounds. No cries, no birds feasting on the dead, no shouts from an angry beaten foe…nothing. As if we are inside a dust filled vacuum.”

 

“You know Hermann, you were gone a lot longer than a few minutes. We waited for hours and even started to count rations,” said Otto.

 

Hermann looked at him and laughed. “Sorry guys, but my time could not have been that off.”

 

“No point in arguing with a crazy man,” stated Werner laughing as he took his place staring into the fire.

 

“Hermann, asked Otto, why were you so worn out when you came back. So sweaty. So tired”

 

“Well I took my mask off for just a few seconds and I became very tired. I thought I was a dead man, but I didn’t choke, my skin didn’t burn, and I didn’t even have a snotty nose. Just really tired.”

 

“I knew it had to be some type of gas,” stated Paul.

 

“Maybe it is,” returned Friedrich.

 

“Maybe a type of experimental gas that just did not have the potency to kill, just make one sleepy,” returned Otto. He didn’t feel comfortable making the statement, but as a practical man, this seemed like the most plausible explanation.

 

“Well geniuses, we either venture out or starve to death, lets ask our fearless sisters, Otto and Freddy boy,” stated Werner.

 

Frederich moved quickly toward the Werner  but was caught on the shoulder by Otto.

 

“Leave him go friend. He is losing it.”

 

“Losing it or not, he is correct,” said Paul. “We either go or stay, but either way we will need food and water.”

 

In unison, everyone in the group, even the unconcerned Werner, and the usually strong leader Friedrich, looked to Otto.

 

“I guess this makes me the head rat amongst rats.,” he thought.

 

“Ok, so let’s get a good a meal and a needed rest. When we wake we will see if the fog dissipated?”

 

“Wonderful idea professor but where do we get food. I don’t think the mess cook will be coming around today,” stated Werner with a sarcastic grin silhouetted by the flames.

 

“Well first Werner,” began Otto “you will give us that chunk of moldy bread you have in your satchel.”

 

“Why you son of a bitch,” said Friedrich as he and Paul jumped on him holding him squirming like a worm marooned on the hot soil surface.

 

Friedrich jumped to his feet holding a large piece of black molded bread in his right hand.

 

“We should shoot the prick for this,” stated Paul.

 

“How did you know Otto,” asked Friedrich, walking over to Otto still standing next to Hermann at the open entrance.

 

“Before when we placed our belongings in a pile, I saw bread crumbs fall out of his satchel,” stated Otto.

 

Werner folded his arms on his knees and buried his head deep with shame.

 

“So how do we survive on sharing this bread,” asked Friedrich.

 

“We start by not giving that selfish jerk a share,” replied Paul, glaring at Werner as he stroked the blade of his holstered bayonet.

 

“Were not going to eat the bread,” stated Otto. “We are going fishing.”

 

Surviving

 

Otto and Paul waited on opposite sides of the entrance waiting with shovels in hand. The others standing as close to the wall as possible and out of sight. Otto placed the piece of bread at the entrance, its black mold reflecting a single beam of light penetrating the entrance through the thick fog outside.

 

“You notice how there is such little light coming out of that cloud,” whispered Paul from the other side of the entrance.

 

“Yea its thicker than before and seems to get denser as the hours pass, whispered Otto”

 

“Shouldn’t we have smelled the bread by now,” came another question from Paul.

 

Otto placed his finger against his lips in a gesture meant to silence his talkative friend. But he knew that Paul was right. At any other time, before the fog, rats would have had free reign within the trench. He remembered times when he was too tired to care as rats crawled across his dozing body like large cats eager for the warmth of their sleeping masters.

 

“Shhh, I hear something,” said Otto.

 

Within a few moments of hearing a loud squeaking cry, a large rat entered the dug-out to feast on the moldy bread. Otto and Paul hesitated staring at the unusual size of the visitor. Otto, and every soldier on the front-line witnessed rats of varying sizes, some as large as a cat, but this was the first rat both soldiers witnessed the size of a small dog, no less than, in Otto’s estimation, three feet in length, not including the tail. Its fir was slick with what looked like clotted blood, with large lifeless black eyes the size of ripe cherries. Otto made the first move and swung the shovel high over his head and striking the rat on its back, just below the massive neck. The rat let loose a squeal that sounded as more of a pig than a rodent. The blow did not have the intended effect. Its back did not break as planned and the beast turned to make a leap at Otto. He swung the shovel again using the sharper side of the shovel and connected with the rat’s jaw. Another loud squeal and the sound of Paul vomiting filled the small enclosure. Otto did not blame Paul for retching despite the horrible wounds every soldier was now used to seeing at the front. Men with missing limbs, missing faces, and torn to bloody shreds still did not prepare them for seeing a gigantic rodent squealing, wiggling on the floor in a pool of its own thick blood, broken teeth, and shattered jaw bone. Paul composed himself, ran over to the bloody figure and brought his shovel down three times on the rat’s head until no more movement persisted.

 

“Holy shit guys look at the size of that thing,” stated Hermann.

 

“I never saw anything like it,” replied Werner, echoing everyone’s horrified thoughts.

 

“Let’s not think about what it has been eating and let’s not think about how many more of these things there are,” said Werner.

 

Otto looked at Friedrich and smiled, “Ok cook lets get this feast started.”

 

Otto watched the others sleep soundly with bellies full of greasy rat meat. He wanted to sleep but his head ached with unanswered questions. He considered the wounds experienced, or imagined, by each of the group. Paul with a definite mortal wound to the back, but what about the others? On the surface, Werner and Friedrichs sustained only superficial wounds, but that is on the surface. In battle, a wound to the arm and leg could be fatal. Just one severed artery and a few minutes without first aid killed thousands of boys in no man’s land. What about Hermann, he thought, still leaning back against the dug-out wall near the entrance, shovel in hand, watching the remainder of the mutant rats’ bones sizzling above the fire on the spit. Hermann didn’t have to reveal any wounds sustained in the charge. Before he left on his adventure of exploration of the fog, Otto noticed thought he noticed three holes on the back of his uniform shirt with three small streaks of dried blood trailing from each. He confirmed this suspicion as Hermann slept with a belly full of rat meat.

 

But what about me? He thought. I don’t remember being hit by anything. As he relived the events of the battle in his mind, searching for clues, he laid down on his back and placed his hands behind his head. He felt something hard on the back of his head, a fleshy hard bump with something just beneath the surface. Otto pulled out his bayonet and placed the tip of the knife just to the right of the hard piece in the center of the lump. There was no pain making the extraction. Within a minute he had the tip of the blade inside the lump and was applying upward pressure, like squeezing a pea out of its protective pod. Carefully he used his right thumb and index finger to grab hold of the object. He brought the object into the weak light now barely streaming through the entrance. It was a piece of metal that covered the entire fingerprint of his index finger. Shrapnel he thought with horror. A piece this size should have knocked ne unconscious, or even killed me. As if experiencing a delayed reaction, Otto closed his eyes and drifted into dreams of gunfire, mutant rats, dead friends, and a mysterious blue fog.

 

Suspicions Confirmed

 

“What the hell is wrong with him?”

 

“Get away from him.”

 

:He needs our help.”

 

Otto was jerked out of the comforting blackness of sleep by the shouts from the others. He forced himself to his feet and fell back against the wall at the site of Hermann twisting and convulsing by the fire. The others were standing around in wide eyed terror, mouths hanging open, arms hanging at their sides like ventriloquist dummies. Otto would have laughed if he wasn’t so scared out of his mind by the surreal scene to his front. Hermann’s body twisted into unnatural positions, joints making popping sounds with each movement like corn kernels over an open fire. A thick blue and yellow phlegm colored liquid spraying from his mouth and oozing from every orifice.

 

He stopped twisting. He lay silent. The others gasped and sighed in relief. Otto cautiously walked closer to the still form that was once his friend Private Hermann Becker.

 

“Otto don’t get too close,” said Friedrich.

 

“What the hell happened?” asked Otto still half in shock and unbelieving what he witnessed.

 

“We were just sitting around the fire and talking, next thing you know Hermann here complained of feeling dizzy. He doubled over and started convulsing. You know the rest, as much as we do, nothing at all,” said Werner.

 

Nobody spoke for a few moments but looked at Otto as if, as Otto imagined, he was being held responsible for letting Hermann go out into the fog.

 

Otto regained his senses knowing that he had to act.

 

“Someone had to go out to scout the area. Nobody told him to take off his mask. Now we know that we are dealing with gas, and we need to get the hell out of here and back behind our lines.”

 

Otto looked around relieved that there were no objections.

 

“He began again, “but first we need to check Hermann and be sure that he can be moved with us.”

 

“What do you mean. He is dead weight and as good as dead and you all know it,” replied Werner.

 

Otto waited for the inevitable fight after Werner’s less than humane remarks but was surprised that everyone remained silent.

 

“I hate to say it Otto, but Werner may, for the first time in his life, be correct,” stated Friedrich.

 

Otto knew his best friend was right and was thankful to his friend for having the courage to say what was also on his mind. Hermann could not possibly survive the twisting, popping, and cracking of bone. And the blue froth spewing from his mouth, nose, and ears is something that could only mean extreme internal trauma.

 

“Well we at least need to see if he is alive, said Otto”

 

He continued to walk towards Herrmann’s prone body with the care of someone walking on rice paper. He bent over and placed his hand on Herrmann’s shoulder careful not to touch any wet areas of his uniform. He rolled him over and jumped backward landing on his backside and scooching himself away from the scene. The others also stepped back at the site of Herrmann’s face. His eyes were open but entirely blood red. His pupils, iris, normal white of the eye was entirely blood red like a red velvet bed spread draped over white sheets. They were also larger, much larger, the same shape of a normal human eye but three times the size. As well as an enlarged nose, thicker and longer by at least, later surmised, twice its normal thickness and length. His lips were swollen and parted, revealing teeth that were regular in shape but larger and extended.

 

“His teethe look like those of that damned rat,” came the voice of Werner.

 

“Jesus Christ what is happening? Is he dead?”

 

Otto decided that they were not going to wait for that answer.

 

“Were going to make sure he’s dead and were going to get out of here.”

 

“You don’t have to tell me twice, said Werner, as he walked over to the mutated form of Hermann and fired five rifle rounds into the deformed face.

 

They buried the body, lowered their heads in a moment of silence and looked to Otto for what to do next.

 

“I’m not going out there,” cried Werner, crawling into the corner of the trench with his thumb placed firmly in his mouth, rocking back and forth, making sucking sounds between fits of sobbing.

 

The others looked at him in amazement and looked at each other in horror. Through endless days and nights of relentless artillery bombardments and agonizing minutes of waiting to run over the top into a hail of enemy gunfire, each witnessed their share of insanity, but this was different. This behavior had the air of pure insanity, as if an alien hand-controlled Werner’s action.

 

“For Christ sakes what is happening? What are we going to do with him?”

 

“Take his rifle,” said Otto.

 

Friedrich sprinted the few feet separating himself and the babbling Werner with his hand outstretched to grab the rifle laying by his side. Just before he was close enough to grab the heavy wooden stock of the rifle, Werner reached behind his back with his free hand and brought the heavy blade of his bayonet at full swing toward the still sprinting Friedrich.

 

A shot rang out from Otto’s left leaving a small black hole in Werner’s forehead and thick blood and brains splattered against the trench wall. Paul took the shot that saved Friedrich from losing a hand to Werner’s shining steel blade.

 

“Were all dead. We were all exposed to the gas,” cried Paul, staring at the macabre painting he made on the trench wall behind Werner’s drooping head.

 

Otto grabbed Paul by the shoulders spinning him until they were locked eye to eye.

 

“Don’t lose it now Paul. Werner went nuts. He was always a bit unstable, but not you, you are the strongest of this group and we need you now”

 

This pep talk seemed to have the desired effect of snapping Paul back to reality.

 

“Yea Paul, we were all exposed and I feel fine,” said Friedrich.

 

“Yea me-too buddy,” replied Otto.

 

“Now here is the plan.”

 

Otto continued, “ we put on our masks, we can use the straps from our gas mask satchels to tie to each other, and we head back toward our supply lines.”

 

“That seems rational enough,” stated Friedrich.

 

“It’s at least two miles back to safety, that is of course the French didn’t gas that far back.”

 

“Were not even sure that this fog has anything to do with gas,” replied Friedrich.

 

“Oh, come on Freddy boy,” stated Paul. “The mutant rats, the mutant Hermann, and I still suspect Werner’s insanity must be connected. Not to mention severe wounds that mysteriously seem to heal.”

 

Nobody spoke another word. Only a fool could see these incidents as coincidence.

 

Friedrich tied his end of the make-shift rope to Otto and Paul tied his end to Friedrich. Otto was the first to walk into the glowing fog. Upon entering he immediately noticed that the cloud was thicker as if some type of living entity growing larger with each consumption of bit of rock, each grain of sand, each splintered tree, and every French and Germany corpse that litters no mans land. Otto felt for the side of the trench wall and carefully crawled along with his back scraping against the side, feeling for a ladder, once used by soldiers entering the trench from the safety of the German rear support lines; Smiling boys descending and hardened combat veterans ascending the opposite side.

 

Otto felt the rung of the ladder and climbed up over the top of the trench. The sweat pouring from his brow making pools of liquid trapped at the bottom of each lens of his mask. Standing up caused the pools of sweat to splash into his eyes, burning, obscuring his vision. He continued to walk blindly forward slow and sure to not pick up his pace until he felt his end of the rope slacken, signaling that Friedrich and Paul were also over the lip of the trench.

 

Wasteland

 

It seemed as if hours passed since crawling over the top of the trench. Hours of looking ahead into a thick blinding fog reflecting the light and heat of a desert sun. Otto kept thinking of walking over thousands of miles of dunes during a violent sand storm. His throat was dry and cracking causing stabbing pain with each swallow of cement like spit.

 

He thought,” if we do not reach the line soon, we will die.

 

Just as he was prepared to remove his mask and expose himself to the fog, his heart raced with adrenaline laced blood boosted by intense fear… fear of the distant squealing.

 

Otto stopped, grabbed the rope, and made his way back to Friedrich. Friedrich must have heard the sound also because he was already heading back to Paul taking up the rear. All three huddled together to hear each other speak, but there was no need for a discussion, only the next words from Otto mattered, “Run!”

 

Otto ran without looking back, occasionally feeling the tug of the rope, signaling that both Friedrich and Paul were lagging. He thought, not without some guilt, that he should release his end of the rope freeing him to escape the horror lurking, camouflaged, within the fog. But love kept him from abandoning his best friend Friedrich, and loyalty to a fellow soldier kept him from leaving Paul. This was still the battlefield, and nobody is left behind.

 

Otto continued to run blindly through the fog until suddenly jerked backwards off his feet in mid stride. The force of the sudden stoppage caused his end of the rope to break, sending him sliding several feet away from Friedrich and Paul, in a direction he could not guess. By the time he could guess his position from his friends, he blacked out from the force of the concussion and his already dehydrated weakened state. For what seemed like hours, but only a few minutes, Otto opened his eyes behind the suffocating barrier of his tightly fastened mask. Fighting his instinctive urge, a second time to run, Otto crawled across the ground as low as he could. He realized that the fog seemed to be lifting from the ground, at least the thickest parts and he could make out darkened silhouettes just a few feet ahead of him. He must have rolled forward several feet or Friedrich and Paul rolled away opposite his position. Otto crawled low to the ground using his hands to dig into the soft dirt feeling for imbedded rocks to use as anchors to expedite his progress. As he approached the two supine bodies lying side by side in the dirt, a chill raced through his spine as he noticed one of the forms covered in dark red blood, and the unmistakable smooth white muscle of intestines protruding from a large hole in the stomach. Still unsure if that was Friedrich or Paul laying in a pool of their own blood and guts, Otto crawled a few feet to his left to the other still body. He dared not take off his mask, or the mask of the body in front of him, but he could tell, with a muffled sigh of relief, that this was Friedrich, and he did not appear to have any visible wounds.

 

Otto’s head began to spin, his stomach ached, and throbbing pains traveled throughout his legs and arms.

 

“I have to unmask,” he thought. Every soldier on the battlefield learns a simple rule from day one. You cannot help a wounded buddy if you are a casualty yourself. Simple enough, but he couldn’t count on two hands and two feet how many have died running head long into danger to save a dying friend. So, Otto slowly peeled off his mask starting with breaking the seal closest to his chin. He grabbed his canteen and swallowed a mouthful of hot stagnant water making him retch but still forcing the hot liquid down. He peeled off the rest of his mask and threw it to his left, feeling relieved by the slight breeze brushing against his wet face.

 

“Now its time for you buddy,” he said, with a smile as he detected a faint rise and fall of Friedrichs chest.

 

Otto peeled of his friend’s mask in the same manner as himself with a canteen of stale water ready to wet Friedrichs dry cracked lips.

 

He jumped back in horror rolling several feet away from Friedrichs body. The form was Friedrich but mutated, distorted, just as Hermann’s face. The swollen lips, enlarged teeth, deformed elongated nose, and those eyes, he thought. Those eyes. Blood red, yet lifeless. The eyes of a rat in the dark of night.

 

He pulled his Luger pistol from its holster with his right hand and with his left, buried his face and cried. “Its not the gas that killed us, it’s the rats. The rats are infected. My God, it’s the rats.” “I’m sorry my friend, but I can’t do it. I can’t kill you, and I am already dead. I will see you in a better life.” Otto placed the tip of the pistol to his head and pulled the trigger, spraying a fine red mist mingling with the blue tint within the surrounding fog.

 

Behind the German Lines

 

“So, Professor Zeigler, what is your analysis of your creation?” asked General Ludendorff, with a crooked smile and a tone of sarcasm.

 

“The operation itself was flawless, he stated confidently. We isolated a small section of our lines for the experiment. The conditions were perfect, an actual battle against the enemy, and the gas was dispersed by our artillery precisely where we planned.”

 

“Go on Professor, I know there is more to an experiment in relation to judging success or failure.”

 

“Very well, continued the Professor with a sigh and a tone signaling that he was not thrilled with talking science with, what he considered, an inferior. “The effects of the gas. Containing biological agent X1, did not produce the desired result.”

 

“In other words, Professor, the inoculations on our own troops was ineffective. You managed to kill everyone left after the battle, with your strange little bug. Although I am impressed with how the gas so quickly mutated and annihilated those poor devils out there.”

 

The Professor interrupted, “We learned that X1 causes mutations, particularly gland enlargement and accelerated growth of tissue, causing I believe, shock and death. There are signs of hallucinations and insanity, and acceleration of body systems responsible for healing, and In a few cases, murder-suicide of friendly troops. I would say that this experiment was a success. We simply need to perfect the inoculations to X1 to protect our own soldiers. Very regrettable that they had to die, but it was all in the name of science.”

 

“Oh, one last thing Professor, something I am sure you just let slip from your mind. My own intelligence reports encountering very large rat droppings throughout the area and unusual wound patterns like claw marks on some of the bodies. I found this strange when we consider how many of the victims appeared to resemble rodent like mutations before death.”

 

“I assure you General, X1 was not designed to create mutant rats capable of eviscerating a man, no less infecting anyone with the bacteria. That’s pure science fiction sir, and you can rest your mind on this point.”

 

“Well I hope your right, because what would happen if such rats escaped the area to run amok throughout the land?”

 

The Professor thought about this question as the General walked to his staff car, and whispered to himself, “it could mean the end of human civilization.”

 

“A new era. Kingdom of the rats.”

 

END

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           

           

 

 

 

 

 

Impressum

Texte: Brian Hesse
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 09.05.2019

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