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Description

For the amazing toby4700 , inspired by the WWI urban \ historical myth about the Wild Deserters - with an added journal entry written from the perspective of a lone British soldier caught in the midst of it all.

Log Entry 34th, 1916, December 14th, The Western Front, as I Write From This Hellish Gully to Ease My Solace.

-"After two years, who would have believed that the Christmas Truce of 1914 would have sprouted such desolation out of hope? Such mass destruction? Desperation? The stories were true. Our commanders written the tall-tales as mere imagination. A fantastical series of transparent political propaganda. Legends. Make-belief. Stories to frighten the men. Play tricks on their minds and perceptions. Something only idle mouths can conjure about in the middle of night when myths run wild in the human blood. But, I couldn't have known that the muddy, desolate trenches were filled with living, breathing men who seemed less like living, breathing men - more like spectral apparitions in the early, cold December dusk - no signs of snow to be seen for miles still, as if though any sign of clearness or whiteness refused to touch the rotten, smoky patch of land. Saint-Yves seemed lost. The Belgian winter bare and gloomy. An army of the walking dead covered in bruises, gashes and patches of graying skin appeared to emerge from underground. I had to wonder what they sustained themselves on, hoping that it wasn't the corpses strewn around on the ground and their own damned selves. They didn't seem overly bothered with my presence when I might've feared for the worst. They could've seemed just like me, expect far less like me. One of them was stumbling about, groaning without ceasing somewhere behind my back, like a dying, wounded, bloated dog and another merely sat in his uniform completely undone and slid to the side on a broken piece of collapsed wood, smoke-pipe between swollen lips, as skinny, half-naked and starved as an infant child - holy Christ on a cross - humming what sounded like some old Irish folk tune. Red Is The Rose, as I reckon. I thought of home there and then and how the shadows on my trail possibly spotted me through the bushes with a musket on my back, seeming not to care. Another one not so far away was mumbling something in Italian. A stout fellow in the distance bearing great resemblance to death itself. One didn't have to be a linguist to make out the words. One had to wonder how long they've spent here. If they were even aware of themselves to begin with? Of me? Perhaps they were aware of me. I could feel the gripping stare of the eyes run like a chill up my spine. They called them the Wild Deserters around the fireplace but nothing about this seemed overly wild or keen. Indeed, truly more akin to something rather melancholy. Sad is the term. The pale, sickly crescent shone out from between the broken, bent trees and the the sweet tune of old rose didn't seem quite as touching or soft anymore. I spent the evening and many afterwards humbled and sleepless, shivering in the trenches alongside Austrians, Germans, French cold and wet as an abandoned newborn. We never spoke a single word to each other. The cries in the night refuse to cease. Unearthly. Haunting. Horrendous. Something beyond describing. They all had their own song to hum in the hollow, deathly silence - and I contributed my part by attempting to have a miserable, squeaky hit at God Save the King, when God, in all rights should have been saving me - and these poor souls. The nameless, forsaken brethren in lay awake with. As He is my witness I'll never hear any carol or song the same again.

Alas, I pray the war ends soon for us all."-

Description

For the amazing toby4700 , inspired by the WWI urban \ historical myth about the Wild Deserters - with an added journal entry written from the perspective of a lone British soldier caught in the midst of it all.

Log Entry 34th, 1916, December 14th, The Western Front, as I Write From This Hellish Gully to Ease My Solace.

-"After two years, who would have believed that the Christmas Truce of 1914 would have sprouted such desolation out of hope? Such mass destruction? Desperation? The stories were true. Our commanders written the tall-tales as mere imagination. A fantastical series of transparent political propaganda. Legends. Make-belief. Stories to frighten the men. Play tricks on their minds and perceptions. Something only idle mouths can conjure about in the middle of night when myths run wild in the human blood. But, I couldn't have known that the muddy, desolate trenches were filled with living, breathing men who seemed less like living, breathing men - more like spectral apparitions in the early, cold December dusk - no signs of snow to be seen for miles still, as if though any sign of clearness or whiteness refused to touch the rotten, smoky patch of land. Saint-Yves seemed lost. The Belgian winter bare and gloomy. An army of the walking dead covered in bruises, gashes and patches of graying skin appeared to emerge from underground. I had to wonder what they sustained themselves on, hoping that it wasn't the corpses strewn around on the ground and their own damned selves. They didn't seem overly bothered with my presence when I might've feared for the worst. They could've seemed just like me, expect far less like me. One of them was stumbling about, groaning without ceasing somewhere behind my back, like a dying, wounded, bloated dog and another merely sat in his uniform completely undone and slid to the side on a broken piece of collapsed wood, smoke-pipe between swollen lips, as skinny, half-naked and starved as an infant child - holy Christ on a cross - humming what sounded like some old Irish folk tune. Red Is The Rose, as I reckon. I thought of home there and then and how the shadows on my trail possibly spotted me through the bushes with a musket on my back, seeming not to care. Another one not so far away was mumbling something in Italian. A stout fellow in the distance bearing great resemblance to death itself. One didn't have to be a linguist to make out the words. One had to wonder how long they've spent here. If they were even aware of themselves to begin with? Of me? Perhaps they were aware of me. I could feel the gripping stare of the eyes run like a chill up my spine. They called them the Wild Deserters around the fireplace but nothing about this seemed overly wild or keen. Indeed, truly more akin to something rather melancholy. Sad is the term. The pale, sickly crescent shone out from between the broken, bent trees and the the sweet tune of old rose didn't seem quite as touching or soft anymore. I spent the evening and many afterwards humbled and sleepless, shivering in the trenches alongside Austrians, Germans, French cold and wet as an abandoned newborn. We never spoke a single word to each other. The cries in the night refuse to cease. Unearthly. Haunting. Horrendous. Something beyond describing. They all had their own song to hum in the hollow, deathly silence - and I contributed my part by attempting to have a miserable, squeaky hit at God Save the King, when God, in all rights should have been saving me - and these poor souls. The nameless, forsaken brethren in lay awake with. As He is my witness I'll never hear any carol or song the same again.

Alas, I pray the war ends soon for us all."-