As the rain ran down the muddy entrance to the dug out, it steadily turned to slime. Soon the slush was waist high. It rose hour by hour and covered the entrance with clay too thick to climb. We were stuck there until the rain started to ease.
To add further to our discomfort was the smell of the dugout. The little air that remained was sickening, old, sour and stale. It was like a mixture of fumes from the terrible whizz-bangs and the smell of men who’d lived there previously and left their curse behind…. if not their corpses!
We hid in the dug out for quite some time… in fact at the time it seemed like an eternity. There was no way out until the blast of whizz-bangs had stopped. However, we couldn’t hide forever. One of the bombs found us at last. It filled our den with smoke and we struggled to cover our eyes and mouths. We could not see and we had great difficulty trying to breathe. The force with which the smoke met us had blown out all the candles, we were in darkness. Fearing for our lives.
Then we heard three loud bangs, almost like thunder: Thud! Flump! Thud! Then a sliding sound, as if something was rolling down the entrance of the dug out. This was followed by a loud splash as it hit the sea of mud and clay that surrounded us. We were terrified. We didn’t know what had just joined us in the hide out. The six of us slowly made our way over. The sentry’s body lay face down in the mud. We rolled him over and tried talking to him, there was not much response. His rifle was the next thing to tumble down the slope of clay. We lifted the sentry up until he whined, ‘O sir, my eyes – I’m blind – I’m blind, I’m blind!’ He must have been in such agony, as it took him great effort to utter that one sentence.
His face was covered with blood and mud. However, you could still discern the tears rolling down his face. I reluctantly moved closer and held a flame against his eyelids to see if he could see the least blurred light. I assumed that if he could, then his eyesight would return in time. Crying hysterically, he moaned, ‘I can’t!’ His eyeballs were so badly swollen that they reminded me of bulging squids. In my dreams I can still see him, squirming in the mud.
* * *
The men that were with me that day, the other five, they were brave men, but the wretches bled and spewed, and one would have drowned himself for good if he hadn’t have been picked up after he fainted.
I try not to remember that fateful day. Every time I think about it, my mind always asks… why? I can still remember the sentry’s moans and jumps, and worst of all was the wild chattering of his broken teeth. Each time his lips closed, another part of a tooth chipped off and was left lying lonesome on his bright red lips. It was a stark contrast to the paleness of his mud and blood covered face.
I was the last to leave the dug out, I felt so guilty. Half way up the clay soaked steps I turned around. The sentry was looking straight at me and through the dense din I heard him shout, ‘I see your lights!’ But ours had long died out.
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