The Sharp End

The Sharp End - Part Two

Bullets whipped and whistled past him as the gunner saw that he had another target. Burke did his best to ignore the hail of hot lead that filled the air as he charged back to where Perkins lay and threw himself into the mud beside him.

One glance was all Burke needed to know that it was all but hopeless; there was a hole the size of his fist in the younger man's abdomen. Perkins' uniform was turning black with the blood that poured out of the wound as he thrashed about in agony. It wasn't hard to guess what had happened; the bullet had entered through the man's back, probably hit a rib and started tumbling, tearing a bigger hole in his gut on its way out. Perkins was already dead; he just didn't know it yet. If the wound didn't kill him, the infection he was certain to get as a result of the battlefield conditions most definitely would.

But Burke had never left a man behind, no matter how badly injured, and he had no intention of starting now. Ignoring the bullets smacking into the mud all around him, Burke got to one knee, hefted Perkins over his shoulder, and then surged to his feet, charging forward toward the trench in the distance as fast as his legs could carry him. Perkins screamed once as Burke got underway but then mercifully went limp, no doubt unconscious from the pain. Burke was glad; it was hard enough carrying the wounded man without him thrashing about in agony.

The mud sucked at his feet, pulling at him, trying to drag him down like it was a living thing intent on keeping him from escaping. But Burke fought on, determined to see his charge to safety. Bullets whipped around him with the drone of angry insects.

The trench was thirty yards away.

Twenty.

The machine gun fire behind him suddenly stopped.

Reloading, Burke thought.

His foot caught on something and he stumbled. For a moment he thought both he and his charge were going to end up face first in the dirt, but then he caught himself and staggered on.

Fifteen yards.

The trench line was close now, just another few minutes...

"Incoming!"

Burke heard Moore's warning cry coming up from the trench right about the same time the shrieking whistle of a descending round reached his ears. He could tell from the tone that it was a big one, probably a 17cm, or maybe even a 25er. Getting caught in the open when one of those bastards went off was tantamount to suicide. There wouldn't be enough left of him to bury if the shell landed close by.

Burke frantically glanced about, looking for cover, but the ground had been so thoroughly devastated by repeat artillery engagements over the last few weeks that even the tree stumps had been pulverized into matchstick–sized splinters. The trench ahead of him where the others had gone to ground was too far away; he'd never make it in time.

The whistle of the incoming shells was getting louder and Burke knew he had mere seconds to find cover or he was going to become a permanent part of this landscape. He spotted a shallow blast crater a few yards away and altered his course to head directly for it. It wasn't much, a piece of scooped out ground where a howitzer shell had landed during some previous bombardment, but at least it provided some cover, limited though it might be.

He was only steps away from the edge of the shell crater when a shell impacted somewhere behind him, the shock wave knocking him to the ground and sending Perkins tumbling away from him. He must have banged his head in the process, for he spent a confused moment trying to figure out where he was and what he was doing before his senses returned to him and he realized he was still in terrible danger. With the realization came a burning pain from his left leg. A glance showed him the gash where a piece of shrapnel had caught him across the thigh. It wasn't bad enough to keep him from moving, however. As more shells began to impact the area around him, Burke scrambled forward, grabbed Perkins by the straps of his haversack, and dragged them both into protection of the shell crater, limited as it was. He covered the other man's body with his own and prayed they'd both live through the next few minutes.