Flash-Thunder

I hunker down in my foxhole with my M1 clutched tightly to my chest. The last barrage left me shaken as a dud shell landed just beside me. I had been writing home to my family when the artillery shells started raining down on us. The paper had been tossed aside as I rolled over to cover myself. The reinforcements were minimal, but my foxhole was defended well enough that the shells that landed around me couldn’t do me any real harm, unless one landed directly on top of me. That was the one that sat in front of me now still intact, and undetonated. I had half a mind to grab it and throw it as far from me as I could, but I was also terrified that it would go off in my face if I did. No need to have a headless body sent home to my family.

Another soldier fell in beside me and tapped me so hard in the shoulder that I could actually feel the pain of the impact despite how numb it had gotten.

“This seat taken?” he huffed. I shake my head at him. “Good.” He lets out a sigh.

The two of us sit in the silence of the cold, dark night waiting impatiently for the next flare to go off over our heads and the onslaught of mortar fire to continue once again. It took until he offered me a drag of his cigarette that I realized I was shaking. The cold had seeped through to my bones to the point I had to almost pry my hands from my rifle in order to grab the damned thing. I eventually manage to close my thumb and index finger around it and bring it to my lips and take in a long drag. Its warmth instantly coats my lungs and spreads through the rest of my body from there.

“Better?” the soldier asks.

“Much,” I say, exhaling the pungent smoke.

“Names Buckly,” he says, extending an outstretched hand to me.

“Stephens,” I say in return. I shake his hand and then return his cigarette to him, my body thankful for the warmth.

“I haven’t seen you around before,” Buckly continues. “You new?”

“Replacement,” I admit sheepishly. “I’ve only been in country for a couple of months.” I shrug. “I’m starting to feel like no one really want me around either.”

“Well, don’t take it personally,” Buckly says. “Most of these men have been around one another since D-Day. They’re family.” He pauses to take another drag. “But don’t worry too much about it. I know I didn’t.”

I look over at Buckly, slightly confused. “You’re a replacement too,” I say. He nods.

“About six months ago,” he says. “These guys had me digging their holes for them as some sort of initiation type thing.” Buckly shakes his head and laughs.

“Why is that funny?”

He keeps chuckling. “Because I dug their graves.”

If I wasn’t so damn cold, I feel like my face would have paled at his statement, but the expression I wore more than likely conveyed my shock because he only laughed harder.

“Not actual graves,” he clarifies. “Before I joined the Army, I volunteered at the cemetery for some extra cash digging holes to burry the dead. So, when these fuckers tried making me dig their foxholes, I dug them all right. I dug them three feet wide by eight feet long. Then dug them six feet deep.” He scoffs. “Should’ve seen the looks on their faces when the first guy came around, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Next thing I know, they’ve stopped asking me to dig their holes for them.”

I imagine the first guy coming up and seeing a literal grave having been dug for him. If it were me, I would have dug my own and told Buckly to fuck off; be creepy somewhere else. However, it is funny thinking of the horror-stricken face of my comrades.

“What about you?” Buckly asks. “Where were you before Europe?”

“West Pointe,” I say. “But I flunked out. Disappointed the Hell out of my old man. World War I vet. After a couple weeks sitting around the house doing nothing, I volunteered. Went straight to basic, then came out here.”

“And oh, what a hell of a place it is to be,” Buckly adds.

We sit in silence for a while afterwards. There is the faint murmur of men whispering in nearby foxholes, but there’s no real way to tell what they are saying. It’s dark, and there’s still several mor hours before bawn breaks over the tree line. I stifle a yawn, hoping Buckly doesn’t notice, but her does.

“Why don’t you catch some Zs?” he asks. “I’m sure it won’t get too crazy out here.”

“I couldn’t do that,” I huff. My body growing stiff again in the frigid nighttime air. “What about you?”

“I’ll be fine,” he says with a chuckle. “I haven’t slept since Holland.”

With that, he jumps out of the foxhole to take a leisurely stroll. I watch as he leaves, noting the stripes on his shoulder for the first time. To think, I was casually talking it up with the platoon sergeant this whole time and didn’t even know. I hug my rifle close and pull my blanket over my head. Cmplete darkness envelops me as I finally allow my eyes to drift closed.

It’s a dreamless sleep, and it’s not really a full sleep either. Even though I have my eyes closed, I am fully aware of everything going on around me. It is how I notice, after what feels like hours, the bright white light of a flare illuminating the night sky. It is followed by the whistling of mortar shells once again raining down on top of us. The booming sounds are deafening in my ears, and my body shakes with vibrating ground beneath me. I wrap my arms tighter around my rifle and close my eyes as tightly as I can.

The barrage continues for several moments before the shells finally stop falling around me. There are soldiers moaning in the distance while one screams wildly for a medic. I carefully pull my blanket off of me and look around. The sun is barely coming through the fog and dense canopy of trees around us. As I climb up and out of my foxhole, I see the carnage of trees that was left behind. I walk around and also note that most of us are still standing. What I want is to find Buckly and see if he’s okay. I grab the closest soldier too me.

“Have you seen Sergeant Buckly around?” I ask him.

He looks at me confused. “Who the fuck is Buckly?”

He walks off, leaving me standing there in stunned silence.