Over the years many have asked me why I myself am the way I am, how some like me could do all the things I had done in my time. I often choose to never answer questions of this nature, afterall, I am not one to lie needlessly, but neither am I one to spin a tale so fantastical that those around me would have had me committed.
I don't want anyone reading this to believe what I write here to be true, only that at least to me this is what happened, and while unlikely, I have seen no evidence to say my belief of what happened to me is untrue. So let this serve as a memoir, biography, story or whatever you believe it to be, because in truth, this is simply a man wanting to let at least one person know the life he led.
Now where to begin…
Even after all these years, my memories of this day are as clear as freshly polished crystal. Then again I don't think anyone would find it strange that this day out of the thousands throughout my life would stand out, though not necessarily for the reason most would assume. If I close my eyes, it's almost as if I was there…
[Somme, France - 7:42AM 01/07/1916]
My mind was not fully there at the time, it wouldn't be for several more days before I would be.
I was roused out of the void by the ache of my lungs desiring to take in a breath they could not. Then the foul wretched taste of wet clay hit my tongue as I tried to gasp in as I attempted to scramble myself up out of the dirt, coughing, choking and wretching.
Now able to breathe I took in several ragged breathes, they had no rhythm of timing, they were simply me shoving as much air in and out as possible. My entire body screamed with each breath but my desire to breathe out stripped it.
After my breathing had slowed i instinctively tried to turnover and sit up since i had been face down in the mud, i tried to push up with my arms and legs but toppled over as i lost my balance and more pain then i had ever experienced shot through my right leg as i let out a guttural scream which only caused more pain from my sore lungs.
Now on my side I twisted onto my back letting out a squelching sound as it impacted the mud, as well as a grunt. Propping myself up on my elbows I let out a scared sound as I looked at the mangled bottom of once had been my right foot.
I don't know how long I stared at it in silence, just staring at it. The only sounds being my rapid breathing and the occasional rapid thumping sound that went away just as quickly as it came.
"GET UP!"
The shout, from where it had come from I do not know, even if it had been familiar, snapped me out of it as I simply told myself to focus.
"MOVE IT! ON YOUR FEET SOLIDER."
I broke the locked-on gaze that had been on my stump as I felt around for what I knew I had on me, a tourniquet.
I tried to sit up, immediately flopping back down into the mud with a slopping sound not having the strength to do so, i looked up at the dark grey clouds, weightless ly hanging above for a few moments before i took in a rapid set of breathes and then made a staringing sound as I desperately grasped at the mud soaked fabric on my good leg as i pulled myself into a slumped forward sitting position.
Grabbing the tourniquet and slipping it over the mangled flesh up around my upper thigh, I tried to tighten the strap, it slipping through my hands like an eel. It was then i noticed how cold i was, my fingers were so numb i couldn't feel them, it took both hand and all the strength i could muster to grip the strap through the frigid mud that coated them, after doing my best to get most of the mud of i barely managed to make it move which elicited a sharp grunt from the pain as it once again shot through my leg, i looked down and saw more blood still leaking out from my stump, it was enough that i could still notice it despite the copious amounts of mud which coated every part of me.
I once again took in a rapid series of breathes as i wrapped the strap around my palm and cupped my other hand other it and with one sharp tug the device tightened as pain worse than that before shot through me as i lost my balance and slumped back, as my mind broke and everything went black.
I woke up again with a start, having no clue how long I had been out. I stared once again at the ominous grey clouds weightlessly hanging above, taking in constant deep breath which I held for several seconds, my hands clenched into the soft clay beneath me as I tried to anchor myself to where I was and what was happening.
I was in a state of shock, my mind struggled to even form singular thoughts, let alone the complex chains I knew I would need to survive. The fact that I didn't go insane from cognitive dissonance as I tried to figure out what happened and my mind told me I had both been charging the German lines as well as driving to work that morning was probably due to aforementioned shock.
I propped myself up on my elbows once again as i looked down at the stump, despite being coated in mud i could so the strands of muscle and flaps of skin all tangles and laying their, chunks of char and strand of cloth mixed in like some sort of morbid salad, i thought the urge to both vomit and panic with everything i had only succeeding in the later as i felt my throat tighten and turned to my side as the viscous mixture of rations from breakfast came up, my head swelled with pressure that built with each wretch, my eyes watering as my stomach cramp. I continued retching several more times, though nothing came up as my stomach was empty.
I stopped myself from rubbing my eye as I blink rapidly a few times to try and clear my vision. After once again fighting to sit up I looked around to get my bearings and noticed I am in the middle of a giant shell hole. Near me were two other soldiers all in the same drab and mudsoaked uniform as me, though unlike me neither of them seemed to move.
Sliding off my jacket and wrapping it around my stump as a makeshift after double checking the tension on my tourniquet, I dragged myself over on my stomach to the nearest soldier, crossing the two metre distance in about a minute of propping myself up, moving forward a few inches then collapsing.
Looking at their faces I didn't recognize them, I tried to feel at their neck for a pulse and feeling nothing tried again at their wrist, nothing, he was dead. Though the fact they still felt this warm meant that he had died recently within the last few hours at least, it wasn't like I could guess the time of death by the temperature of a body or anything nor could I see any obvious cause of death.
I stifled another wretch as I glanced at the next body over four metres away from me, this one's cause of death was far more obvious, the entire bottom half below his waist was gone.
I dragged myself over to the face down corpse, taking even longer than before, with a groan I flipped them over and then leaped back slightly though it was kind of a pathetic leap now I think about it.
"Bloody Hell." I muttered under my breath as I recognized them. Staring back at me was the glassy eyed gaze of someone who I think was named William, he was one of the sons of a shopkeeper over on Nettleford.
After checking if either were alive I checked myself all over as best I could, I noticed a few cuts and scrapes though nothing else that seemed serious, well over then the massive bruise that seemed to have become my whole torso. I prayed for a second that it wasn't internal bleeding since with the bloodloss i had already had i would be dead in a few hours. Either way, I need to get out of this hole.
"Fuck…"
My first attempt at such had failed spectacularly as the soft clay simply refused to let me find purchase and it ended with me back on my back staring at the sky once again. And as if the heavens saw fit to curse me even more, I felt a drop of water hit my skin, which was followed by another, and another, and before long a light drizzle became a downpour.
What came next started with a chuckle as it hit me, somehow, me…i…we…whatever the fuck i was had ended up here. And soon enough it turned to uproarious laughter at my fate, afterall, the only other reaction one could have in this situation was to cry and I might as well do that too. I'm sure if someone had been alive to see the sight of a bloodied, mud covered, injured soldier, laughing and sobbing simultaneously at the sky they would have assumed i had lost it, but no, i can say with certainty that in that moment, and that moment alone, I had never felt more clarity in either life, and i would never feel it again.
The shell hole was quickly filling up with water, and I didn't particularly like my chances at swimming in my current state. My mind managed to grasp a solution soon enough. I crawled over to the first corpse…no…fellow soldiers I had checked and grabbed the entrenching tool at their waste.
The next 20 minutes of scraping and scrambling as i made my way out of the trench was simultaneously both impressive and pathetic but i made it, so yay drowning was off the table, now i just had to worry about, internal bleeding, stray artillery, gas passing over or even being shot if i manage to make it out of this shithole.
I closed my eyes and tried to focus on what I could hear over the rain. I had no clue what direction the assault this morning had come from nor where it was going. I heard shouting coming from 4o'clock of myself and shrugged since that was my best shot at this point.
Only god knows how long it took me to move towards the sound, the locomotion method i used was both crude and efficient at the same time, i would grip the entrenching tool with both hands before jabbing it into the ground deep enough to act as a lever, i would then pull myself forward rest for a few seconds and repeat, all while interchangeably cursing either Princip, hindenburg or kitchener since those were the three people i held responsible for this even if i knew it was a bit more complicated then that.
"Ahmed, look at me now." I said as I got to the top of a slight rise in the landscape remembering how I had always refused to go hike up a damn mountain with him. Honestly, I never got those people who said love or something let them push through this pain. Sure, I wanted nothing more than to hug my family right now, but with the tumultuous sea that was my emotions currently the only thing that kept me going was spite. It wasn't directed at anyone in particular, just existence as a whole.
"Woah…"
With one more push i started to tried to scale back down the rise but let out sound as i began to slide, it was only a few metres but to me it felt like i was back in one of those water parks as a kid, is i slammed back into the mud at bottom now on my back again.
The noise and shouts were closer than ever now and with the rain having stopped I shouted.
"HEY! SOMEONE…CAN ANYONE HERE ME…"
The noises went quite for a moment before picking up again a few moments later.
"At least they heard me."
I muttered under my breath. I soon began dragging myself closer once again. It was half way through pulling myself forward once again. I heard a footstep and then felt a hand grip my shoulder and flip me over.
"Britischer Soldat!? Nicht bewegen!"
Seeing a pistol pointed at my temple i froze and as it set in what had happened i muttered
"Bugger…"