Vincent Tengwana

From Mud and Shellfire: A Memoir of Trench Warfare

I'm informed that this specific district of France was once exceptionally lovely. Rich, green woods as should have been obvious, and where Europe's lessening natural life could track down shelter. I press my eyes shut and attempt to envision it-cool wind stirring through the leaves, wild deer sluggishly eating in patches of open glade. "Wake the damnation up, trooper!" I get snapped back to reality by a discourteous push from my squad leader. I surmise I was envisioning my lavish green timberland excessively hard and floated off. Honestly, I’m extremely tired, to such an extent that in any event, blinking is enticement for a rest. In any case, I can't rest now since it's nearly time to go over the top. What used to be a thick woodland is currently an infertile hellscape of cavities and a periodic broke tree stump. I'm tremendously intrigued by exactly the way that intensive the obliteration has been. Like a barbed scar running for many miles across Europe, close quarters conflict has decreased the territory to a cursed dead zone. Heaps of big guns bombardments have destroyed the scene and transformed it into a sloppy mess. There isn't so much as a touch of grass left. The annihilation really is... outright. "Boots and rifles!"