Advantage On The Front

• Nadia Levenets, Grade 10, Trinity Catholic College
• Short Story
• 2011

Excellence Award in the 'Step Write Up 2011' competition

The night was gloomy, as gloomy as the moonlit sky. The young soldier used it to his advantage as he fled from the trenches. His brisk steps barely touched the hard soil, it was as though he were flying. He didn't need to look over his shoulder because he knew that the enemy would hunt him down. The enemy thundered through the bush shouting. It was not the shouts he feared though; it was the armed Soviets he was running from. Exhausted, he climbed up into the the largest tree and waited. It began to rain, his breath was louder than the footsteps of the men below and the sweat stung the cuts on his body. “Any minute now”, the man kept thinking. The snarling stare of a Russian loomed below him. His scream split the night. He was ready to fire. In severe panic, the young man had intended to stand tall and face the gun, but he couldn’t. He cried and begging to live, he didn’t want to die. The Russian leader, only smiled. His cold blooded presence shivered the souls of even the departed. He didn’t have a clue what the young man had said – probably pleading to live – but that was nothing. Later that night, the flashes from the storm above was not the only flash that could be seen.

The summer haze and piercing wind did not affect the five men who sat in a group out the front of the camp. The calm discussion had been going on for some time now. “That is easy for you to say. You were not there when we made a stand. It was a bloodbath.” The first rays of light had not yet appeared, yet the desert was crisp and cold, nonetheless the Russian leader was sweating more than on a hot, summers day. The look of his face said it all “All of you, get back to the trenches and never come back!”

As the men were walking lazily back to the trenches they spotted the enemy in the distance, so they ran as fast as they could and as they approached the enemy, with guns blazing, they realised that the enemy had been anticipating their arrival at the docks. The five men were nothing but powerless. The enemy had full control over them and could do nothing. Their guns were taken and destroyed and their clothes were torn off and burnt. The only thing left to do was finish what they had planned. As the sun faded away, the odds were in disagreement with the five men.