The Broken Nations

Chapter 1: The dawning of war

I loiter there, on the soft and rain soaked mud that infiltrated my clean uniform; I have only been here for a day and so far it seems that these soldiers all around me contain the same emotions and show the same expressions. Expressions of horror within their pale eyes. Many men sprinting past with many items of upmost necessity; ammunition, weaponry and artillery shells were all I could observe from the pale and battle scarred hands of these men, I imagine what it must be like out there. Out in that hostile land, the hostile land not due to the enemy that lurk there in numbers so great we cannot count but due to the distant memory of a families' house that once stood, so proud.

Stuttering on my thoughts, I slid my rifle off my shoulder. The rifle which I would take life with, the rifle which would help me to take life with. Creeping towards the tiny slit in the concrete bunker wall with my rifle posed towards the enemy, or what we think was the enemy. In reality I could not see further than twenty metres due to the smoke produced from the constant smashing of the artillery banging down onto what were bright green carpets of fields and high rising hills that once brimmed with all sorts of life, once.  We all heard it, the distant whistles and faint screaming of those through the smoke as they, presumably, came charging to try and rip our last position from our already scarred hands in a desperate offensive vital to our nation's position in this war. We could not fall...

The orders were given,

"Cock your weapons and aim ready men!" the leading captain yelled at our position and, as ordered, I pulled back the bolt and placed my eye by the rusted iron sights of my rifle to only hear their war cries and screaming, only more clearer.

"After three, fire at your own damn will and make your shots count men!" the leading captain screamed with all he had left as he knew that even if we win or lose we all die; not necessarily die physically though. Either way we die; our men though have hearts of steel and sympathy for all. Even the charge commander loaded and secured his machine gun's bipod ready for action which in the end, gave us all hope.

"Three!" the leading captain squealed and as soon as that word was said, my life would change forever. None of shouting, artillery, gunshots or constant drumming of the machine guns affected me, only the journey that I would find myself in. Still aiming, I let my rifle take control over me; man after man fell out there and in the next minute I could still faintly see them however, not just the men. I double glanced and even shouted to the next soldier if he saw also. I wasn't dreaming. It was a great, magnificent and extreme machine with guns and armour smothering it like a mother and her new born baby, we were stunned by this work of engineering that dominated our thoughts at that precise moment. Nothing we were told, nothing we were trained for, nothing we were given could have prepared us for what we faced.