Cold and wet

Posted By OWEN HEBBERT, SPECIAL TO THE DAILY OBSERVER

Posted 3 months ago

Rain fell across the battlefield in a heavy, imposing manner. It came in thick, blinding waves like the wash of a sea. There was no lightning and subsequently no thunder, but the sky was so replete with clouds that, were one uninformed, one might have thought it night rather than day.

In the trench it was hell. Water ran in cascades down the mud walls and gushed in black, frothing rivers over the trench floor. The men were halfway up to their knees in it. There was almost nowhere that they could go to get away from the rain. Those sitting on benches that lined the walls of the trench had to be resigned to getting not only their shins but also their laps wet, as rain pour in and water fell down from directly over them in long, streaming drips.

Worse than this was the rats. Hundreds of rodents, fat from months of feeding on human refuse and bodies, were drowning - and not quietly.

"Bloody cold," James Lawrence said. The young English corporal shuddered and flapped his arms across his chest, sending a spray of muddy water into the face of the private beside him. "Sorry about that, Cramer," Lawrence apologized, rolling his shoulders miserably.

"Forget it," Cramer said, wiping his bare hand across his face, a wholly vain effort in hygiene as his hand was muddy and dripping rainwater. Jonathan Cramer was young. Not young like Lawrence was young but much younger still. The boy's face was acne-ridden and the baby fat that still clung to his cheekbones contrasted strongly with the firm set of his jaw and the deep bags under his eyes. The youth was withdrawn and had always avoided conversation with his fellow soldiers. Deep within his sunken eyes, and under his youthful face was a secret that his nervous, fretful disposition caused to prey on his mind.

"How old are you Cramer?" Lawrence asked, sucking the rainwater off his lips and spitting it back out into the water swilling around his legs.

"Sixteen," Cramer said in a low voice. Like hell he was sixteen.

"Really?" Lawrence smiled at the kid. Cramer wasn't looking at him, but was busily occupied with chewing the corner of his mouth off instead. The boy was obviously younger than that. Fifteen or an older fourteen. The carbine clutched in the youngster's hands seemed humorously unthreatening. What does a boy like that do when he breaches the trench? They call it cannon fodder.

"Why's the water doing that?" Cramer asked, sullenly changing the subject.

"Doing what?" Lawrence followed the boy's gaze and found himself looking at the black flood in which his feet were immersed. He really wasn't all that interested in talking about water in any form right then. He took his peaked cap off and tapped it on his forehead to knock the rain off before pulling it back over his lank black hair.

"It's sort of swirling there," Cramer said, pointing.

Something in his voice, an oddly uncharacteristic strain of insistence, made Lawrence look again. The trench was as dark as late dusk and the water was darker than hell, but in the light from the sputtering kerosene lantern carried by a passing sergeant, the surface of the water was somewhat illuminated.

And Lawrence saw it. A single, thin whirlpool with a diameter of about two inches was spinning furiously.

"I'll be a son-of-a-gun," Lawrence breathed, lean- ing closer.

"Where's it going?" Cramer asked, also leaning forward, impressed that the small nothing that he had chosen to change the subject was so genuinely interesting.

"I don't know but it's going steady. Somewhere there's a big space that's taking a lot of filling," Lawrence said thoughtfully.

"But what? There's no space under this is there? I mean, I wasn't here for the digging but I don't think we have anything here. Unless there's some kind of a storage cell under the boards of the trench floor. Do you think that there are supplies getting wet?"

"Storage cells be hanged!" Lawrence snapped. He straightened and rose. "Sergeant Durst!"

The sergeant turned and looked over towards the speaker, raising his lantern to see better which of the soggy, mud-coated men was speaking. He saw Lawrence standing and nodded curtly, not interested in being detained when he could go stand in Major Heath's small dugout while delivering his report. "You have something of importance to report, Corporal Lawrence?"

"It's just a small matter, sir." Lawrence pointed down at the mysterious indication of a drain.

"What is it man?" Durst demanded, squinting past his lantern at the patch of dark, swirling liquid being indicated.

Lawrence leaned closer down, stabbed his gloved finger at the whirlpool. He didn't speak, forcing Durst to come closer to inspect.

"Well?" Durst seemed unimpressed. "It's water. You have some in your ear. If it weren't there you might have heard that I asked you if you had anything

of importance to report."

"The water's draining, sir," Lawrence said.

"Then it has my blessing. Is that all, Corporal?"

"Sir," Lawrence said carefully, "the water shouldn't have anywhere to be draining to."

"Then it isn't draining, man! Do you need me to take this apart for you? Idiot!"

"Sir..."

"Shut up!" Richard Durst couldn't believe that he was having this argument when the major was awaiting the routine report. "Shut up!"

"Yes, sir," Lawrence saluted and sat back down on the bench. The warmth from when he had been sitting there before was already washed away by the torrent that crashed loudly down on them from the merciless skies.

Richard Durst turned and started wading away through the trench. The man had been making fun of him. Water draining. The subordinates could be such stupid blighters.

Durst was devoted to serving his king, his country and his major. Unadulterated passion for noble causes drove the man and got him recognized and promoted.

Men like Lawrence were spiteful over the apparent ease with which such sincerity bought the go-getters favour. Mind you, Corporal Lawrence wasn't a common perpetrator of disrespect. What had the man been thinking? Water draining, indeed. In the trench! What was supposed to be obvious there?

Then it clicked.

"Bloody hell!" The sergeant turned and stared, his expression one of dawning horror, at Lawrence. The corporal nodded, his face softening as he saw that Durst was catching on.

"You!" Durst shot his hand out and pointed to Cramer even as what felt like a full inch of rain fell from the sky and slammed over them, drowning his words out in a whirling scream of wind and water.

"Me?" Cramer pointed to himself, guessing at the intent of Durst's gesture.

"Tell Major Heath that something of considerable importance has turned up! Go! Run, boy!"

Crashing through wings of black, frigid water, the private plowed off through the flooded trench. Durst and Lawrence studied the whirlpool in the light of the lantern. The unspoken fear that they both felt was understood and not stated. There was only one reason that there would be a large space under their trench.

The Germans had tunneled across no man's land.

Tomorrow: Close quarters...