World War I

France, November 1916

The rain had not stopped for three days.

Private James Hawthorne sat with his back pressed against the cold, mud-slick trench wall, clutching his rifle like a lifeline. His uniform was soaked through, his boots squelching with each step. Around him, the low murmur of exhausted voices mixed with the distant echo of artillery fire—like thunder on a battlefield that never truly slept.

He was only nineteen.

The war had stolen many things from James—his brother Thomas, who’d died in Ypres; his innocence, gone with the first bullet he’d fired; and now, perhaps, his hope.

He hadn’t written home in two weeks.

What was there to say?

“Dear Mother, today we buried another lad I barely knew. He cried out for his mum as he bled. The mud took his boots as we dragged him out.”

No. He couldn’t send her that.

A low whistle blew down the line. Sergeant Collins, face hardened by loss and weather, barked an order.

“Up and ready, lads! We move at dawn!”

James’s stomach turned.

They were to go over the top—again.

That night, sleep came in short, haunted waves. Rats scurried across boots. Somewhere, a man wept quietly into his coat.

Just before first light, the whisper spread.

“New boy coming in.”

James looked up as a small, pale figure was led into the trench—a boy, maybe sixteen, barely old enough to shave. His helmet sat awkwardly on his head, and his rifle looked too heavy for his thin arms.

“Name?” Sergeant Collins grunted.

“Henry... Henry Locke, sir.”

“Locke, eh?” the sergeant muttered, scanning his roster. “Stay with Private Hawthorne. Learn quick or die quick.”

Henry gave James a nervous smile. James nodded, hiding his unease. The kid reminded him too much of his younger brother.

Dawn.

The sky turned grey, then orange.

The whistle blew.

James climbed the ladder with shaking legs, heart hammering in his chest. Henry followed close behind.

They emerged into no man’s land—a world of craters, wire, and smoke. Bullets cracked through the air. Men screamed. Somewhere to his left, someone collapsed with a shriek, clutching their chest.

James kept moving, boots heavy with mud and fear.

Then, Henry cried out.

James turned.

Henry had fallen. Blood stained his sleeve. He was caught on barbed wire, panic in his eyes.

“Help!”

James froze. The battlefield roared around them. The others were already ahead. But he couldn’t leave him. He wouldn’t.

He dropped low, crawled through the muck, and reached Henry.

“Hold on!” he shouted over the gunfire.

With shaking hands, he pulled wire from the boy’s arm. It tore skin. Henry whimpered but didn’t cry. James lifted him, half-dragging him to a nearby shell crater. They collapsed inside, hidden—for now.

Henry was breathing hard. His arm was torn but not fatal.

“Why’d you stop?” Henry asked, wide-eyed.

James looked away. “Because someone once stopped for me.”

They waited there for what felt like hours.

Eventually, the gunfire lessened.

Night fell again.

They crawled back under cover of darkness, joining what was left of their company. Only twenty men had returned. Out of nearly seventy.

Sergeant Collins gave James a rare nod.

“You saved him. Brave, that.”

James didn’t feel brave. He felt broken.

The next day, James finally wrote home.

“Dear Mum,

I’m still here. I saw a boy fall today, barely older than Charlie. I couldn’t leave him. I keep thinking—what if that were me? Or him?

This war makes you forget who you are sometimes. But I remembered today.

I remembered that we’re not just soldiers. We’re sons. Brothers. People.

I don’t know how much longer this will go on. But I promise I’ll hold on.

For you. For Thomas. For the boy I saved.

Your son,

James”

Spring, 1917

The war dragged on, but James and Henry became inseparable—brothers not by blood, but by survival.

They shared rations, dug trenches, and watched men come and go.

Henry told stories about fishing with his father in Norfolk. James spoke about the hills near his home in Yorkshire. It gave them peace in a place built for none.

They made a pact:

“If one of us makes it out, we find the other’s family. Tell them everything.”

They sealed it with a handshake, muddy and bloodied, beneath a starless sky.

October 1917. Passchendaele.

The rain returned. The mud was deeper than ever.

And then came the shell.

It landed just meters from the trench.

James was thrown backward. His ears rang. When the dust cleared, Henry was gone.

James searched. Screamed. Dug.

He found only his helmet, twisted and cracked.

The war ended in 1918.

James returned home a different man—quieter, older in spirit. He walked with a limp, but his mother said he still smiled the same.

One spring morning, he traveled to Norfolk.

He knocked on the door of a small cottage.

A woman answered—eyes kind, tired.

“Mrs. Locke?” he asked softly.

She nodded.

“I knew your son,” he said. “Henry. In France.”

She stepped back. Tears welled in her eyes.

James sat in her kitchen for hours, telling her stories. About Henry’s bravery. His jokes. His dreams. The pact they made.

When he left, he placed something in her hands—Henry’s helmet, polished, repaired.

“He saved me, too,” James said.

Years passed.

James never forgot.

He married. Became a teacher. Had children of his own.

But every November 11th, he would stand silently at the memorial, fingers brushing the edge of a small brass plaque.

It read:

Pte. Henry Locke – Age 16

Gone Too Soon, But Never Forgotten

And James would whisper the words they once promised each other:

“If one of us makes it out...”

Moral of the Story:

War takes lives, but it cannot take love, loyalty, or the memory of a promise kept.