A Child's Battle

• Nilla Kumaran, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2013

This is war. The green soldiers versus the blue soldiers. It all comes down to this. All of the soldiers’ years of training, hardship and commitment, leads up to the final battle. Soldier Greg, a blue soldier, hides behind a fallen tank, trying to think up a plan. He is concealed and safe in his hiding spot, but can’t shoot anyone from his position. He has to find somewhere else, where he is relatively safe and has a good shooting point.
In the corner of his eye he spots his close friend Robert, in his position, signalling something to him. Greg squints at him and turns his palms upward gesturing his confusion. He soon interprets Roberts signals as “Cover yourself if you go in.” Greg shows a sign of thumbs up and then turns away to reload his gun. But what Greg doesn’t know is that Robert was really trying to say “Cover me, I’m going in.” Just as Greg gets his hands on his ammo, he hears a familiar, shrieking scream. He turns around to see Robert lying on the ground in the middle of the field, hands grabbing his stomach covered in blood. Soldiers carry him away before he can react. His body fills with anger and a sudden need to avenge his friend’s death.
He takes deep breaths to calm himself down. He reloads, making sure he’s got enough ammo for the daring feat he is about to pull. ‘Ok, buddy. You can do this. Go straight out. Block out everything else, this is what you focus on,’ Greg thinks to himself. His eyes are on nearby truck parked facing a building wall which provides the perfect place to shoot without being seen. The problem is, that it’s more than 15m away and going there would leave him out in the open, where the green soldiers can easily shoot at him. Without leaving himself any more time to ever think his decision, he crouches and sprints towards the truck. Finger at the trigger, he keeps his head turned toward the green soldiers, keeping his eye on every enemy he can see. Good, thing too, because he spots a shooter about 25m away aiming his gun at him. Quickly taking action, Greg fires at the man without hesitation, watching him fall to the ground. ‘Phew,’ Greg thinks, ‘not long to go.’
Soon, Greg is only 6m away from the truck. Relief floods his body, and he loosens his muscles, but all too soon. As he reaches the truck he hears two gunshots and feels searing pain in his right hip and leg. “Aargh,” yells Greg, jumping to cover. He drags himself to the corner against the truck and the wall. There’s not much he can do. Whenever he tries to move pain shoots all up his right side. ‘I guess this is it,’ Greg thinks, ‘I may have fallen, but I’ve fallen fighti-.’
“Tom! Jack! Pack up all your soldier toys and come inside, Tom’s mum is here.”