The only story I’ve ever published was accepted by Pill Hill Press (unfortunately no longer in business) into their Daily Flash 2012. At the time, I was still a WWII re-enactor (I’ll address this in another post once I’ve had time to gather my thoughts on it), and I decided to write the story below. I recently read this story again to see how painful it was and boy did it deliver. I decided to edit it to fit my current voice and feelings - the original was about 450 words and this version is about 1000 words - which is probably the worst thing a writer can do. I can more or less guarantee my voice will be different 10 years from today, but for now, I can live with this.
How to Dig a Foxhole
It's early November and my birthday is in a few weeks. Number eighteen - yes, I lied about my age when I enlisted. Another artillery storm rains down on us. A shell hits a few feet from my foxhole. Dirt flies in my eyes and shrapnel ricochets off my helmet. Some poor kid, not much different than me, screams for the medic.
“Medic, medic! Oh god, anyone, please. My leg! Where's my leg?”
But the medic is in my foxhole. And the one next to me and the one next to that. Gunfire drowns out his screams. I want to go help, I try to pull myself up out of that hole, but those machine gun nests are relentless. I can feel the heat of the bullets as they race by my face.
"Let's go, Corporal Levi. Time to get moving." Sergeant Marceau smacks me on the top of my helmet. He's belly-down in the dirt, his olive uniform drenched in mud. "Can't move up if you don't get out of there. On your feet."
He jumps up and pulls me with him. More gunfire. Sergeant Marceau hits the dirt and doesn’t get back up, while I fall back into my foxhole. My rifle jams in to my side, right between two ribs. The only thing I can do is keep my head down and my M1 closer. Good thing I dug my foxhole deep this time, I don’t need another Purple Heart. Great idea assaulting a fortress, Patton.
It’s funny; my mother’s family is from this village. She always wanted to take me to the old country. Coming of age kind of thing. I don’t think this is what she had in mind. I don’t think this is even close to what Metz looked like when she grew up here. Her stories make it sound so peaceful.
"Like a little heaven carved into the Earth, Matty," she used to tell me. She only left because my father forced her. His dream was America. Her dream was a family and a husband who didn't walk away. My father got his dream. Mom didn't.
New orders come through.
"All units fall back to the eastern front."
My squad never gets the message. Our radio Tech is face down in his foxhole, the fried radio burnt into his back. The rain starts and my feet freeze so bad in the pool that used to be my foxhole that I can't stand. Then the Wehrmacht patrols come looking for prisoners.
We aren't hard to find, what's left of us that is. They get pretty rough with us. Couple of broken jaws and noses. I get rough back. I'd rather go down swinging than bend to a bunch of bullies. They line us up, but they never get the chance to pull the trigger. The rescue patrol sees to that. God, I will never forget watching those Nazis get cut down. That could have been us. Do they have families? People who care if they make it home? Do they live somewhere like this village? They don't though - they can't. My mother is from here and wherever they're from is where evil is born.
None of it matters. The machine gun nests pin us all down and half the squad is gone. We dive back into our foxholes. A whole week we sit there waiting for something - anything - to happen. That’s what a lot of war is, sitting around waiting for something to happen. Waiting for kings and generals to make decisions while we all get torn to bits by walls of lead.
The rain turns to snow and frost builds up in the peach fuzz on my face. It's my birthday. Finally, I'm eighteen. I'm a man now I guess, whatever that means. Does a number make you a man? Am I that much different than yesterday? I can drink, I can smoke; that's something. But I already did all those things.
Patton’s new strategy actually works and the enemy falls back. We finally get out of our foxholes and stand up like humans. I soak in the quiet. The sound of the trees without gunfire. Snow crunching beneath our boots. Pine needles falling to the ground. The air smells of sulfur and rotting flesh.
Engines roar past us. An ammo truck pulls up and we all load up on clips and grenades. No chow though. The generals didn't think of that. I sure could go for a hot meal right about now. Don't much care what it is, whatever slop the army usually gives us would do.
"Alright, troops, fall in. Come on, be quick about it," says some hotshot lieutenant out of West Point. The guy next to me - Private Shiga - leans over.
"What's this guy's name again?"
"I don't know. Moron? Morris?" I say.
"Morrow?"
"Who cares."
"It's now or never, gentlemen," says Lieutenant Morrow. "We got them on the run. Let's do this."
"Going to get us all killed, so he can get a few medals before heading home," I say. "Make his daddy proud."
"Yep, probably."
We fix bayonets like we're at Gettysburg. I haven't taken this thing out since basic. Can't shoot straight with it on. The empty sheath clanks against the metal button on my pocket. If the enemy can't see us coming, they damn sure can hear us. The lieutenant leads us through the forest into a whirlwind of shrapnel and lead and fire.
“Push forward!"
None of us make it out of the forest that day. I wish my mother never sees her home like this, all torn up and blown away. Some officer in a warm barracks far away from the front will type the letter to her. I served with honor; it'll say. I've done our country a great service and all that usual stuff. What it won't say is the whole time running through those trees, all I wanted was to go back to my foxhole.