The offense (haha like this storybook) had disintergreted into chaos. Forget choas. It was utter, utter pandamonium. Nicholas closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, a fleeting glimpse of a long forgotten nightmare playing across his eyelids. He opened them.
There he was, standing on his watch post at the opening of the Royal British Rifles Brigade, men dropping like dirty raindrops in the prevailing windy mist. He clenched his rifle, and glanced down at his left foot. A dead man, killed by one of their own lay there, politely unpreturbed by the trouble.
Nick spat. Sweat had not stopped oozing from his hair, neck and limbs since he stepped off the boat. Thoughts of his Mother lingered just above his breath as always. He had no girl waiting for him at home. What did he even have to show, anyway? He was the son of a landowner in southern Ireland. Nothing he owned was truly his.
Even his life belonged to the queen. He'd been given his post of officer because of his class.
It was time to earn his medals. Without a backward glance, he hauled himself up over the wall of sandbags, and threw himself out into no man's land.
*
