The morning was welcomed with a sombre song; not by the sweet winter sounds of arctic birds awakening the world but instead the faint mumble of distant artillery. As if beaten by the weapon's of long-gone Valkyrur, a thousand shudders of Europa's core did little to permit silence. The potent whiteness of a desolate wasteland - caked in the ice and blood - held the spoils of war in a cornucopia covered in shrapnel wounds. Dressings of broken trees clothed the land, where a once mighty forest had once stood. But the sparsity of its prime attraction had long gone, with just a few stumps left split open by artillery fire. And across the valley was an ocean of wire, fit with barbs and prongs to catch the unsuspected rats that occupied the fields. Assen: a once beautiful land enriched with pastures unimaginable, with the bliss of the spring and chime of the winter highlighting its most beautiful sides. And for four years, it had been nothing less than a graveyard for culture, ideology and hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
December - the time of rest, the end of a year and the separation from work and home life. Gift-givers, great feasts and familial get-togethers. Out on the frontline, things were far from the same. Many drank alone or with strangers unknown. The greatest feast on the table was a slice of stale bread, tinned chicken or yesterday's soup. The only gifts exchanged were those of bullets, mortars and bodies.
Once, the land had been flooded from the toe to knee in rainfall. Mud drowned the prairies whilst the unending tide of shells made craters into dirtied lakes. One could not quite compare the trade-off in pros and cons between the autumn and winters of the great war. On one hand, the risk of drowning was far and few between the odd case of an unlucky soldier, but the alternative was the struggle of keeping warm in leathered boots and woollen trench coats. And the lives of soldiers had barely improved. The lonely remained as such, and the loved lost their partners. Those who were still around quelled their circumstances with terrible meals and bitter nights of passion. The trenches soaked their clothes and skin with ice, whilst the daily rainfall of bombs tore holes in their jackets.
From the skies, the birds saw nothing but lines in the soil with death and destruction between carefully constructed landmarks. Towns were either shielded by the trenches that spanned over the horizon or were caught in the middle, where they lay as ruins, indistinguishable from the shaken landscape itself. But if the eyes of the hawks were dropped from the sky, and into the laps of the 15th Atlantic Rifles, the brutalist groundwork of Plymouth Lane becomes clear.
What was Plymouth Lane? Well, a miserable lane to live on, for sure. The home to B-utters and C-harlie Company as well, though anyone would be lucky to find someone who called it a home. About three hundred and fifty metres in width, the sector aptly given the usual road-like identity was one of a thousand trenches in Europa. The little wooden signs, with unaffectionate scribes of chalk, gave it that avenue feeling, though far more grimier and with a worse state of peace. This sector vertically categorised a series of trenches two hundred miles East of Stavern, caught between the similarly named Holly Drive and Turner Road. They were the parallel frontlines ahead of the nearby village of Trebín. Interconnected by alley ways, zigzagged networks of purpose-built defences, the world of Plymouth Lane was unpleasant as it was homely for the decrepit souls of its occupants. And there was no shortage of patriots, criminals, lovers and thieves all caught inside the dugouts and sentry posts. Soldiers, conscripted or volunteered, mingled with one another just to bear the agony of imminent death. even the lively arrival of the Vinland Expeditionary Force from across the pond did little to raise the spirits of the downtrodden. Though in all fairness, they were just the first wave of many Vinland lads and lasses to fall in line with the devil's guard ahead of them.
While the few civilians still left in Trebín gave their safety for the hopes of those who served to protect them, they were at a constant threat of any artillery barrage, if one officer were to so order it. The 1.2 kilometre distance from the Reserve Trench did nothing to silence the worries of the resting and recovering. Those who showered hoped that only hot water would land atop of their heads. Many lacked the desire to sleep, knowing that any full-on assault from the Imperial frontlines would require all available hands to withstand the push.
Scattered throughout the corridors of Plymouth Lane, the men and women of B-Company, 2nd Platoon went about their days as they always had. There were newer arrivals, some who'd been there for a few days already, as well as those who saw the same old fields with the same old bodycounts waiting to happen. One Captain Middleton Jr. kept his eye over their proceedings without so much as ever leaving the Command Dugouts. Like many others, his attention was spindled in the web of a soldier's priorities: victory, survival and the next big one. Those crippled by the months of fighting into the Heart of Assen, he there was nothing to go back to. Some, however, returned from their due leave, or took their given time to stay in Trebín Village to lock hands with the ones who gave them an identity in the sea of uniformed, faceless soldiers. Many had died. Many were yet to die. Replacements be damned, of any experience, they came with the shame of filling in the boots of a hundred loved ones. Such was the cruel happenings of the Great War.
December 30th - Frontline Trench
Hark! The sound of the Atlas Whistle is upon us.
Six Pounds! Six Pounds! Heave up the dirt like shovels and quakes.
Two Twelves, Four Sixes. Up the sun, down the moon,
Lest I beg for silence, the daylight cycle persists.
Come here, you say, come here!
The I's are on the ridge, walking in Europa's shudder.
"Well Waltz they will!", and I exchange my brass for their buttons.
A man of faith, am I? Of what, I ask.
But of course I believe, and choose to place my heart in the most vibrant of lamps-
Why, the ones that stand in the dark like fireflies at early morn!
For it is never too dark here, that would be too characterised!
Hark! The General's paintbrush dabs the canvas, and we return to the grey.
But black is as lively as white, and the dead lay somewhere between.
Turn of the century, the next man's graveyard shift;
Twice I've been on duty, and I see just the injust'.
By the November breeze, I've lost it. The sense of
Touch and taste of the man on my left, and the woman's lips to my right.
Hark! The ones who come next will bear the load!
To hell with that, for they can't lift Atlas' Whistlers.
Six Pounds! Six Pounds! Heave up the dirt like shovels and quakes.
Two Twelves, Four Sixes. Up the sun, down the moon,
Lest I beg for silence, the daylight cycle persists.
Come here, you say, come here!
The I's are on the ridge, walking in Europa's shudder.
"Well Waltz they will!", and I exchange my brass for their buttons.
A man of faith, am I? Of what, I ask.
But of course I believe, and choose to place my heart in the most vibrant of lamps-
Why, the ones that stand in the dark like fireflies at early morn!
For it is never too dark here, that would be too characterised!
Hark! The General's paintbrush dabs the canvas, and we return to the grey.
But black is as lively as white, and the dead lay somewhere between.
Turn of the century, the next man's graveyard shift;
Twice I've been on duty, and I see just the injust'.
By the November breeze, I've lost it. The sense of
Touch and taste of the man on my left, and the woman's lips to my right.
Hark! The ones who come next will bear the load!
To hell with that, for they can't lift Atlas' Whistlers.
It had been the eighth time he'd read over the piece and yet he felt evermore the insecurity of the quiet writer. He dared to share his mind with the pencil and paper so sparingly taken from his neighbour's dugout bed, but rarely did he see the performance of his piece to those he trusted and cared for. What good was poetry to a page when the only expectation of the man was to pick up his pieces and soldier on with the two chevrons on his epaulettes? Another hopeless question with a clear answer. He had hammered in the sentiment of self-improvement at the sake of his friend's safety, but the costs of his own self-interests were far-beyond what he'd known.
The months - oh the fucking months - had taken pieces of his personality with each creeping hour. From Amone to Stavern's outskirts and the unnamed fields in-between them all, he had watched the degradation of his group with little control for what happened to them. Injuries had befallen unto the absent, and those who were unlucky enough to be unscathed persisted in fractured parties. The city had its way with him, and he hadn't been nearly as talkative to anyone since. The hopeless attempts at love became the fabrics of another time, of another person, whilst he chipped away at each piece of graphite until he had an unfinished anthology of ramblings most uninteresting to his allies. Two pocketbooks of cries for help, screams at his nation and pleas for the Darcsen plight to cease had given him more than enough of a share. Those dirty pages lost their white edges for yellow fades, where mud had stained the bindings and given them a rotten tone forever more.
He hadn't moved for a long while. Ever since he'd arrived to Plymouth Lane, he'd spent more than the given time in the Frontline Trench. More often than others, he volunteered to sit in the observation post, to commit to sentry duty for a couple of hours on the off-day, shiver in a caved wall dugout, only to rest in the reserve trench for the remainder time. He saw those he liked a lot frequently, but was never in a position to be stuck with them. For their betterment, he told himself, and waited for them to meet him in conversation. Many had when they got the chance, or on the occasion where he trekked back to Trebín with a desire to shower and rest in a legitimate bed. He never booked out those private rooms the village offered. What point was there, he wasn't sharing them with anyone?
More often than not, a soldier would barge past the Darcsens that were huddled in with the other national identities. There was little that could be done back, for the rising tensions in heated debates made clear of the Federation's disarray, whilst the Empire pried their ears open for weakened opportunities. The other night, a group of six went out on a raid to the opposite side, crawling through at the morning's inception, and they never came back. Well, one did. But he might as well not have, bleeding out just seconds after falling limp into the pit. Jean saw his face with pity, sympathy, but also a little resentment. How dare he die where others have asked to do so first!
"Sarn't on set! Section, 'tion!" Rarely did Jean get used to the lingo of the deep Edinburgh slang, less so in military formalities. And, rather sluggishly, he got out of the dugout and stood to.
The Sergeant had been the same one who passed through on occasion. The thick-browed barbarian with the paintbrush above his lips, so the nearby privates called him; the one who went out on many raids and seemed to come back with as little gains as he'd been ordered to. Many suspicions as to why such incompetence was kept around, but with the dwindling numbers of command staff on standby, Jean knew that the Federation would've accepted pigshit to lead a platoon. It was how people like him even existed in unfavoured positions of responsibility.
"Pritchard? We got a Pritchard on set?" And in he came, on set. The place in which the next 'big show' was going to happen on. A man who loved his use of words knew they thought they were very clever in coming up with the drivel that passed between the soldiers. Either way, he knew it couldn't have been any worse than that of his own home nation's flowery dressage for war and conflict. But to answer the request of the Sergeant, a frail lad stepped forth.
"Sergeant!"
"You're on the Observation Post. Get up there now." Passing through the rugged crowd, of which he dismissed as he passed them one by one, Jean caught a glimpse of a very familiar face in his wake. He felt the need to smile, but only gave off a weak one. The Sergeant then stopped in front of him. "Corporal?"
"Yes, Sergeant."
"Captain wants you to stand with Private Farris whilst he's preoccupied for the rest of the hours. You lurking around here?"
"Was going to head back to the village in a few, Sergeant."
"Boss wanted her on the frontline again, though." He said with a sly smile. As if conjuring up an old-time joke between friends of the ages, he put his hands in his pockets and muttered in a low grumble. "He won't know for five."
"Done." A lack of subtlety aside, Jean made quick work of drawing five cigarettes from the currency pack in his webbing. Like gold, the Sergeant swept them up without question and pocketed four, leaving the fifth to be lit by his own lighter. A giddy laugh left his lips, but Jean turned his attention to the friendly face.
Private Lucia Farris. Always a lurker, like himself, but with the disappearances of those like Michael on leave, she'd been left to drift between people once more. If anything, he thought it lucky that she had been graced with his responsibility. Someone she could at least talk to, and know, rather than the awkward flirting of a young soldier she'd never met once in her life. She was dressed, still, rather nicely compared to the others around her. That little morale booster was still in there, and the months of a maturing psyche pushed by war seemed unfazed by the troubles around her, as if she intentionally blocked it all out. Lucia crept a little closer, circumnavigating the leaving Sergeant, and smiled.
"How're things?" Always the nonchalant, even if her timid voice gave the opposite impression. Jean nodded at her and packed his papers, ensuring she didn't catch a glimpse of what there was to see. They still had a bit of time to lurk in the trenches.
"The usual. You?"
"I'm doing...okay. But, I can't wait to go back to the village. We can talk up a storm with the pub-ladies if you'd like?"
"I'll let you do that." And as he sat down in the trench, she did so beside him. Her boots didn't quite reach the bottom of the trench when she did so, something that he would've once jested about to lighten the mood. But the joke had passed, as did the time to make it. They sat there, waiting quietly. Sometimes they talked about little things. The rest they waited for something to happen, be it a voice, an order or a face. As such was the life on the Western Front. He just hoped he would gain something new when he'd go back to the village.