Being in the war I have seen many men come and go. For the most part the men are all the same. Their exteriors resemble a hard brute of a man, not wary of any decision that put them here, ready to charge over the top at any instant and prepared to sacrifice their lives for the greater cause. I see through that though. I can tell that at their very core, through the whole tough guy ensemble, they are really just nervous and scared, but putting on a brave face to cover it all up. Having this ability to look through a man and see who they really are is one of the many skills I have perfected over my almost 2 years in the west side trenches. There was only one man I had truly misjudged: Sam.
When I first met Sam I had realized how desperate we had become for soldiers. He was short, so short that we had to get him a step stool so that he could reach the machine gun. Although he was a solid 4 foot flat he probably had pounds on me as he ate as if he wasn't going to see food for the next week everytime we had a meal; he ate so much that he even started inventing other meals like second breakfast, and elevenzies. To be honest I have no idea where the food was going. At the rate he was going I would have presumed he was gaining weight but apparently he lost 2 stone over his 3 month tenure.
Now I may have had some serious doubts about Sam. I mean serious. He did have one thing going for him: he was a brave chap. I had seen Sam go over the top multiple times and each time he had a face of pure focus like the face of a cheetah hunting down its prey compared to the standard deer in headlights that most of the guys sport on any trips through no man's land. I will never forget the last time I saw him.
Our platoon was on a stealth mission to get behind enemy lines and flood the German trenches from the rear, catching their soldiers defenseless. As most missions went in World War 1 the stealth op didn’t go as planned. First of all, we were all low on ammunition which wouldn't have been a problem if we hadn't got into a firefight as soon as we had just begun our flanking route. We got through the skirmish with no casualties which we all took as a good omen because it's not everyday you kill 30 bogies with not one of them landing a shot. The gunfire had alerted some German soldiers on the other side of the ridge. As we heard them coming we decided to duck into a small bunker that was around the size of a large 1 bedroom apartment in London, which is decently sized but when filled with 24 soldiers it became quite crammed.
Right when we closed the door we heard the German soldiers outside the bunker. The room became so quiet you would have been able to hear a pin drop. The German scouts were closer now. You could make out every word of their foreign language, until they stopped suddenly and there was a faintly audible swooshing noise as the scouts approached the door of the bunker. German bunkers are almost identical as British bunkers except for one key component. German bunkers only have one entrance, that also means one exit. As the enemy soldiers approached the whole platoon pointed their weapons at the small window in preparation for it to be slid open. There was a long pause. The window then opened but instead of a man's face or even the barrel of a gun there was nothing visible on the other side. I looked around and my eyes met with faces of confusion. My brain went into hyper drive trying to formulate a plan to get my platoon out of here. Then all of a sudden a small ball not much bigger than a baseball flew in through the window. Not only was I surprised as that was one heck of a throw but I quickly panicked as I realized that that was no ordinary ball. It was a bunker cleaner; a special German grenade that sprayed shrapnel decimating its targets. I quickly began to try and get as far away as possible, only trying to save my own skin. All of the other men had the same idea. Well almost all of them. Sam didn’t, he leaped on top of the grenade in an act of sheer courage. I looked away covering my eyes.
We fought our way out of the bunker as the German soldiers believed the grenade got everyone leaving them stunned when 23 men opened fire on them as soon as they pried the door open. Once we had disposed of the enemy scouts I ran back into the bunker and flipped over the remains of Sam’s body. It was a terrible sight, his guts leaking out of him, his blood everywhere. I shed a tear as I now fully understand the sacrifice that Sam had made. His face was frozen with a brave look placed upon it. Sam, a man who was courageous and brave to his bittersweet end. A man who I am in eternal debt to.
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