War At Its Worst

• Jack Rieger, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2016

War is tragic. It is horrible. This is the story of potentially the most horrible war of all. You are John Anderson. This is what happened:

You pace along the length of the large ship waiting to land. A peninsula appears in the distance, its deep slopes clouded by swirling white fog. As you approach the peninsula, you see that it will be a tough climb, but several hundred thousand men should be able to climb it with a little teamwork. Your plan is to launch a surprise attack from behind the enemy and catch them off-guard. As the fleet of a hundred ships dock, thousands of lead bullets rain down on you and your comrades. You are suddenly engulfed in pain and misery as a bullet strikes you in the leg, rendering you incapable of walking. You crawl slowly off the ship in pain, and hopelessly toward the cliffs that loom above you. You pull yourself slowly, ever so slowly toward the cliffs. One of your fellow soldiers speaks. 'Take my hand. We'll make it'. You believe it. You pull yourself painfully toward the cliff with a renewed surge of hope. Soldiers let down ropes to help the injured. Under fire, the treacherous journey to the top, to flat battlegrounds, takes months of hardship and determination. Hundreds of thousands of your men are killed in the massacre. As you reach the top, you realise what a breathtakingly beautiful country this would be if it wasn't a war-torn wasteland. As someone assists you down into the trench, you notice something at his feet. When you are in the trench, you pick it up. It looks like some sort of mineral. You realise that you weren't selected to fight this war - you were conscripted. After months of tough battles that you weren't going to win, your officers order a retreat. Overnight, you and your comrades put holes in the bottom of different sized tin cans and put water in them. You tie them together over the triggers of guns so they go off at random times, so the enemy will think that you are still firing. Then you and your comrades retreat to the ships and sail back, defeated and in no mood for excitement or jokes. The battle you have just fought will make history as the worst fought battle and the most successful military retreat in history. The battle of Gallipoli has ended.