Devil’s Path
Chase Hillock

	He yawned and wiped his hands free of mud, for what he wouldn’t doubt was the thousandth time since he had come out early that morning. He sat down to take in his surroundings. As he dabbed the sweat from his eyes he could smell the freshly turned soil and vegetation around him. He blinked and sighed as he looked at the great stretching land around him, the only just rising sun preparing to cast an eerie glow over the scattered, rain-filled pits that littered the earth all around. The man pulled out his private flask and took a swig of its fiery contents; the woody taste made him smile slightly. He set the flask down on a blackened, upturned tree stump and looked at his watch. 5:13 am. 	
	Gathering up the will to press onwards he gathered up his flask and other effects. Sliding the flask back into his pants pocket he noticed a speck of dirt on his collar, smearing his old patch. He brushed the now-faded oak leaf clear of filth and continued to crawl along the soaked ground. He edged past an old fence, rusty barbwire littered the loam. This may have had a significant duty a year or so ago, he thought as he looked at the corroded orange metal. He crept forward further seeing other things littering the wires of the old metal forest: strips of washed out cloth, rusted barrels, rotted leather straps and other attestation of past usage. Surely there was far more beneath the surface of this entire sector he was crawling through, but he dared not dig down to find out. He dropped down into a ditch and landed up to his waste in putrid, stagnant water. He waded down the ditch to a collapsed side and crawled out and rolled into another dip in the earth. The morning fog clung to the ground on this side of the flooded trench. He was glad; he’d be able to make better time. Looking at his watch again, after wiping the grime off its lens, 5:25. 
	He sighed and hurried up a slight rise to his right near a rusted, burned-out shell of a truck and propped himself against the cab, his boots crunching broken glass. Ducking low, he peered out at the ground ahead of him. Too dark to see much of anything. Even hidden as he was by the truck and the slowly dying twilight of the past night, he felt terribly exposed. He was glad for the sturdy metal body armor that covered his torso and thighs, and the thick plate he had strapped to his helmet. Its weight galled him to no end, the thirty-five added pounds to his already ten pound helmet hurt his neck and back. He would have left it behind ages ago if it wasn’t for the bullet dent in the top-left side that was testimony that it had already saved his life once. He kneeled in behind the drivers seat, and pushed the tattered, moldy, charred remains of the driver away from himself. The stench didn’t bother him anymore, this whole valley reeked of death, the corpses of thousands of men cause every breath to be rank with the thick pall of death. He heard a faint crump, then another and another. He turned around to look back to his own lines and saw the flashes of the howitzers delivering their deadly cargo. A shell whistled down near him and impacted in the soil to the fore of the enemy lines sending mud, shrapnel and long buried human remains into the air. He caught sight of a sentry shouting down at unseen troopers assembled around him. The man’s warnings and orders were cut short as a round took him in the back of the head and spun him around to tumble down the embankment. The man behind the truck worked the bolt of his Mauser and ejected the spent round and slid another home with a clack. The shells fell like rain, the smoke of explosions turned the morning sky as dark as night. The man left the truck and backtracked to a collapsed dugout and crouched inside, the mud on his boots swilling in the brackish water. 
	He saw a Lewis-gun team prop the machine gun in a fire-point on the parapet. He allowed them to get it ready and the gunner stand behind it, ready to fire on their soon to be approaching attackers. He lined up his second shot and sent his round down the barrel of the machine gun, the chambered bullet blew out with enough force to splinter the metal casing and send debris into the faces on the crew. He knew they were not dead, most likely, but he did neutralize the gun. As he flexed the bolt and slammed another round forward a blow like a blacksmith’s hammer slammed into him from behind, he crunched into the dirt edge of the dugout and slumped to the waterlogged floor. That was way to close. He was shaken but alright. The shelling became more sporadic and finally ceased, though it was far from quiet, the din of battle raged across the plain. 
	The British lines had opened up on the Germans charging across the body-choked hell of no-mans-land. He re-loaded and started picking off anyone foolish enough to show his head above the firing step. Troops rushed past him, their Sergeant nodding thanks to him as he ran past. The sniper returned the nod and snapped off another shot. He lowered his rifle as he fed another five rounds into it. Looking back up he saw the whole line ahead of him was being over-run by their troops. They wouldn’t be able to hold it for too long, the British would counter their attack and push them back. But it had to be done. He pulled his kerchief and cleaned the face of his watch again. 5:48 am. He took another sip from his flask and turned back to his own lines to get some breakfast and some rest.