North Road {HS}

29. Harry

France 1917

"Come on you scrawny git," I said kicking his boot, "We're going over."

"Lemme sleep," he groaned.

"You can sleep when you're dead."

"You wish."

"You're right I do," I answered. Maybe another morning I would have laughed. But we were going over.

"Fuck you, Styles," he muttered as he stood.

"The sentiment is mutual, Lew," I answered moving on and Lew followed. He always did. We were going over the top.

"Where's Pierce?" asked Lewis as I went down the line waking the others.

"We're going over. Whaddya think?"

Everyone had their rituals. Pierce Schultz never wanted to go over without taking a shit first.

"That boy takes scared shitless too literally," laughed Lewis. Because that was Lewis. We were going over the top and before we went over he would laugh. Lewis always laughed.

We worked down the line as we always did. I woke the boys and Lewis plied them with some joke. They could use it. We were going over the top.

Our pathetic ranks fell into line to prepare for the battle ahead of us. Some of us hadn't received a new uniform in over six months our clothes riddled with tears, mud, and holes nibbled by rats as we slept. I looked over and saw that the front of Lewis's right boot was tied together with a piece of twine he had found to keep the sole from separating from the rest. We were tired and disgustingly ill-equipped. Despite this, we were going over the top.

Orders were barked along with vain, empty promises of this ending soon. Men tried not to look at their compatriots as though it was the last time they would see them all though it very well could be.

I felt for the flimsy sheet of paper in my pocket- a letter from my mother I had received a few weeks ago full of details of home so beautiful I could practically smell the apple tarts- and surveyed the crude and holy rituals performed by the men around me. This was the hell we had become accustomed to and with Pierce on one side his head bowed in prayer and Lewis on the other sneaking one last swig from his flask I could feel the adrenaline mounting. We were going over the top.

A hail of shouts and now familiar mayhem ensued as we climbed over in a storm of mud and flailing limbs and bayonets. We were scorned, hungry men carrying an unmatched fury; men running to their death. The skirmish felt like hours before the sounding came to call us back, but I assumed it could have been mere minutes.

Spotting Lewis and Pierce I began the mad dash back to safety- or whatever semblance we had. Men threw themselves back into the darkness of the trenches like rats jumping ship silently celebrating their own safe return. No one really celebrated though. It seemed an injustice in this hellhole. We had gone over the top. There was no reason to celebrate.

Despite this I scrambled toward Pierce and flung an arm around him.

"'Nother notch in the belt. Think I'm gonna run outta leather here soon," he said on an exhale that an optimist may have even called a chuckle.

"I s'pose," I agreed, "I-"

The familiar screech and shout of "cover" interrupted any thought as bodies flung to the ground. For a moment there was silence as men laid in heaps attempting to cover any vital organs before the chaos of a shelling ensued. People run for better protection while others remain to see the damages. It was there in that instant that my world was turned upside down.

His dirty blonde hair has grown around his ears. The look in his eyes is still the same; full of admiration, telling me he would follow me to the death- that he likely has followed me to his death. The blood starts beneath his ear and drips on to his wrinkled uniform collar. It was shrapnel in his neck and the battle he was being forced to fight for any shallow breaths as he drowns in his own blood is far, far worse than any of the time he had just spent fighting over the top.

"Harry," he wheezed and all I could do was stare.

Pierce was on his knees at his side ripping up his uniform to staunch the wound that was already far past saving.

"Meg's never gonna forgive me," he said making a sound that sounded like a laugh before he started choking and I was sick to my stomach.

I heard Pierce reassure him, telling him empty promises of nights at the pub together after the war ended. Yet I was stuck.

I'd seen hundreds of deaths since this war began- more than I could count. And yet I found myself on my hands and knees vomiting the contents of my stomach out in disgust, in shock, in guilt as Lewis Prescott- Margaret's Lewis- died.