Refuge of Delayed Souls

Part 27 - Friend and Neighbour

Heav'n's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;

In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

1 July 1916 - The Somme - 07:15

The crescendo was building all around them. The artillery barrage, which although constant of late, had increased dramatically in the last few hours.

Stanley Thomas Birch tipped back his head and stared into the heavens straight above him. A light mist broke to reveal a clear blue sky. It was going to be a beautiful summer’s day. He permitted his mind to float home and pictured his wife cradling their son. He longed to return.

If only he could greet the next morning with his family and a dawn chorus of birds rather than flying pigs*. He longed to take a deep breath of fresh air, have a proper bath and wear clean clothes. He wished he had his life to live over; he would have done things differently. They had to win this war!

Amidst the jostling of bodies around him there was an urgent pulling on his shoulder and his attempt at peace was broken. It was Archie looking wild and frantic. The tension was even getting to the best of them. Stanley knew he did not have a hope in hell of being heard above the constant bombardment, but nevertheless he lowered his head and shouted as loud as he could, “We all feel the same way, Archie. Have no fear, we shall face this together!”

He glanced at his watch, 07:25. Only five minutes left. He nodded to the whistle hanging by a lanyard around Archie’s neck and reached down for his own.

Glancing to both sides he dived into a sea of smiling faces. If you had to be in a place like this, on a day like today, there was no better company than friend and neighbour. Placing the whistle in his mouth he faced the harsh reality that this would be the last morning for some of them.

Forcing himself to smile broadly he turned towards Archie and smacked him playfully on the back.

“This is the moment we have been waiting for! It’ll be just like a walk in the dell,” he yelled, and taking a deep breath they blew their whistles together.

***

Change and decay in all around I see

O Thou, who changest not, abide with me

The rat was larger than a cat. The rats back home would never grow to be even a quarter of the size of the one he was looking at; they were not as well fed. It was the worst type of rat too, a brown one.

It stood still, staring back at him and they both knew he was going to kill it. He was going to butt stroke its rancid, stinking body with a Lee Enfield rifle a thousand times and smash it to a bloody pulp. He was going to smash it, smash it and smash it some more while all the time it squealed in agony. He fecking hated rats!

He hated frogs too, the way they croaked all bloody day and night from the shell holes, it drove him crazy. He hated all rats with a vengeance and the frogs, slugs and horned beetles that slimed their way over the entire trench, into his food and over him! Christ, he hated them all! He was filled with murderous hate and fear.

He preferred the hate to the fear. The fear gnawed and chewed away at him like the rats gorging themselves on the corpses of his comrades. Like the rats gorging themselves on Stanley...

He fecking hated rats!

This big bastard was going to get it and then some! He wasn’t going to give it the opportunity to feast on him next, or crawl over his face if he ever got the chance of sleep. He clenched the rifle tight, frozen in time like all the other bodies lying in the shallow graves around him. It was hell on earth but it was better than what was waiting for him on the other side of the parapet. Anything was better than becoming another feast for the vermin. He fecking hated rats!

In seconds it would all be over. The rat would just be another indistinguishable stench amidst the nauseating stink of rotting flesh, shite, cordite and stale sweat. Not that it would make any difference to the rat population though, Mr and Mrs bleeding rat could produce 900 of the baskets in a year alone. Maybe he wouldn’t have a year to see them, maybe he would be dead himself in a few minutes. He was a dead man walking and he knew it. They all were, even the fecking fat, about-to-be-dead, cocksure basket of a rat!

Wouldn't you rather walk out of here alive

Feck! The rat was talking to him! Well it wouldn’t get the chance to say another fecking word! With a frenzied scream, he ran forward, lurching at it with his rifle. The demonic laughter continued.

“Die, you fecking bastard! Die!” he screamed.

I’m going to eat you from the inside out

He shot the rat. After the first shot, there was virtually nothing left of it apart from a pool of blood, clumps of fur and mush. The macabre laughing continued. It was coming from the vermin all around him: other rats, frogs, slugs, beetles and even the corpses of his colleagues. It was coming from inside himself, from the blood-soaked head of the rat chewing its way out from behind his eyes.

“I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!” he screamed hysterically.

"It will be alright, Archie. I am here beside you," answered Stanley.