Clockwork

[Iron Aquilifer]

Disclaimer:
While my writing style may contradict these words, I nevertheless must write them. I am believe that it is the duty of someone to fight for their family and friends. If your friend enlisted during WW1, then it was your duty to do so too. Why should you remain safe when your friend will potentially die? Granted, this view saw entire streets empty of their male population. It saw friendship groups wiped out within minutes. However, that is my personal opinion, and I have personal friends who do not share this same viewpoint.
However, war is not glorious. War is not noble. War, it can be argued, is a necessity to right wrongs, but it is not in itself right.
War should not be celebrated. The bravery of the men fighting should be. The strategic or tactical genius of a general should not overshadow the willingness of the common soldier to follow orders.

This is a short story I had to do for reasons beyond remembering but thought that since is was quite short, I would post it, and potentially advance on it (perhaps use it as a prologue)

So, anyway, here it is:


CLOCKWORK

The guns roared long into the night. The shots lit up the sky like fireworks. Each hit shook the earth like God's own fury.

Ethan Rogers lay awake in his bunk, having gone beyond the point of exhaustion long ago. He barely noticed the scratching and scurrying as rats feasted on his straw mattress. The snoring of his squad mates and their cries at unseen horrors went unnoticed, as it had for days now. All Ethan saw was the barren land he was to cross. All he heard was the guns booming. The booming counting away the seconds of his life.

"Private Rogers, get up!" The sergeant was in their room, the same cave they had dug themselves two years ago. "Get up you lazy sods! Up! Up!" Sergeant Jim Baker had been a scrawny eighteen year-old. Once, in another life. Ethan couldn't see any of his old schoolmate in the growling beast that was his squad leader.

Stiff, moaning, sighing, Ethan and his comrades dragged themselves out of their damp beds and on to the water-logged mud floor. Grasping his Springfield rifle with numb hands, Ethan staggered out of the room and into the trench proper.

...

When the parade marched down the main street, with bands playing and banners waving, Ethan had been awed. The polished shoes and crisp uniforms made the wearers look glorious. Their smiles were infectious and all the boys in Ethan's class know that they had to join.

They had to be like those heroes. Those men were the pride and joy of the country, and the lads from the small, run-down public school wanted to be just like them.

Jim Baker had been the first to join, eldest in the class by two months. His example was followed by the very best of the school: William Black, preaching the word of god; John McDonald, happy to be away from his father; Andrew Skye; Peter Roy; Rupert Tay; Gregor Smith... and Ethan Rogers.

...

The men were shoved to their places on the firing lines without care. Up and down the length of the trench, officers and sergeants barked orders and sang overused words of encouragement. When a solder fell asleep against the trench wall, a swift blow was dealt to their back.

Ethan looked but didn't see. All that was in his mind was the sounding of the guns, and the clock which ticked towards the end. Beside him was his squad, eagerly gulping down their double-ration of rum. The faces of the men he had gone to school with were few. Most of those in his squad were new, shaking with a crazed excitement for war.

"Supposedly we are being support the 3rd Liverpool Rifles," William Black called out to all who would listen. He had been the tallest at school, and only seemed to have grown bigger with the war. The mud that caked the faces of them all seemed to help William's once dry skin.

"We don't need any English help," smiled Andrew Skye, nudging Ethan. "Don't you agree? The 'Rough Scots' can do this by themselves!"

This was met with a ragged affirmative, those who had survived the fighting which had given the unit its name deciding it was high-time the replacements knew. Hundreds of the boys who had recently joined listened intently, paling as all the details were divulged.

Ethan dimly remember that the 18th Scottish "Rough Scots" Division had been merged with a Welsh regiment. And that near enough all of the replacements from Britain had come from the border... on the English side.

There was barely any Scots left to give the division its name.


"Ethan?" Andrew clicked his fingers in front of his friend's face. "You alright?"

The guns were sounding less often, as if to drag out their last moments. Ethan felt faint, his hands shaking in violent spasms.

"We are going to die," he managed to croak.

Andrew had already turned away, intent on explaining to one of the "new meat" why they had really been given bandoliers.

He caught something about slingshots before the nearby officer uttered the words he was dreading.

"Five minutes."

The words sent cold chills down the soldier's spine. He had heard them a thousand times when his mother called him for his dinner. Now, however, those words told Ethan how long he had left before the end.

"Let us pray," declared William Black, who had kept his faith while slowly dying in the Belgium countryside.

All the men in their sectioned the trench bowed their heads. When William spoke, some spoke the words with him. Others whispered their own prayers, some to God, and others to whatever kept them going.

"One minute!"

Sergeant Baker reappeared, his violent nature hiding his youth from the new men.

"You all better shoot straight! We have a reputation to maintain, remember?" He growled the last word as if it were a threat.

Ethan breathed shallowly, bending his knees before they crumbled beneath his weight.

The whistle blew, and a hundred voices roared.

Ethan roared with them, defying the world as he struggled out of the trench. As soon as he was over and running, he went deaf.

He knew the guns had stopped, but his breathing was as loud as they had been. The men to either side of him were silent, despite the fact that their mouths were moving.

Ethan ran forwards, towards the horizon where he assumed the enemy were. His eyes went wide and his feet moved faster and faster, propelled by an energy he couldn't possibly have.

The men raced across the mud, diving over craters and vaulting the remains of house walls. Large splinters, which could have been fences or gates littered the ground, damp and moulding.

Ethan couldn't hear the war cries of the men around him, but he could hear the sickening slurp as his boots detached themselves from the mud with each step.

Then all the noise returned at once.

The first shells landed directly in the trenches, oblige ring much of a platoon still struggling to get out. With each distant thud, the shells fell shorter and short, as if the Germans had a vendetta against Ethan himself.

The world was all noise. A wall pressing down on him from every direction, the screams of the dying sharp blades in to his skull.

A shell landed off to his left, sending a wave of mud and Peter Roy through the sky. A second explosion flung Rupert Tay's long face across Ethan's path.

"Keep moving!" Snarled Jim, pushing a child forward.

"Come on Ethan! Run faster!" William gestured to Ethan, almost five metres behind.

There was no time to think. If he slowed then a shell would get him. The push had to go on.

An explosion blocked sergeant Baker from sight. A ringing shot blasted through John's eye, erupting from the back of his head.

All around him, the last remnants of Ethan's childhood died.

"For Scotland!" declared William, kneeling to squeeze off a shot at the Germans.

In their arrogance, the enemy had leapt up out of their trenches to fire at the British. A burst of fire sent the schoolboy sprawling.

And then the clock stopped.

[Iron Aquilifer]

I will get the fiddly bits finished tomorrow, ran out of time

[McScottish]

You, sirrah, shall be getting my rep and that's for sure. Damned Sassanachs...

I did think it'd be a tale about Clockwork fruit, but I must say I'm glad to see a WWI tale - even a short story - floating about.

No idea if you'd write a longer tale, but I'd love to read about the 'Rough Scots' and their experiences.

[Iron Aquilifer]

Thank you for your kind words

I will attempt to follow up this short piece with a fuller description of the (fictional) 18th Scottish Division, from their formation as part of Kitchener's Mob, to their experiences on the Western front, and the actions which granted them their nickname. On to the West's deployment in Russia during the Civil War which saw Lenin's Communist party gain control over the entire country, and then their disbanding, and maybe even a little about how the men spent the rest of their days, attempting to adjust to civilian life after upwards of four years of fighting.

I will stick up a disclaimer in the OP just to be on the safe side

[McScottish]

I look very much forward to it! Might even start my own...probably not, but who knows.

[Scottish King]

That was quite a story. +rep