We Fought In Verdun

• Sven Guidon, Grade 8, Coffs Harbour Christian Community School - Middle/Senior Campus
• Short Story
• 2016

Excellence Award in the 'Word Zone 2016' competition

My ears were ringing and my heart was pounding, I was not prepared for this. The constant gunshots and the screams of helpless dying soldiers made me become nauseous. The Sergeant screamed orders right at my face, yet I couldn’t hear a thing. I looked up to see a flying metal cylinder land right in front of me, I was harshly nudged over to the side and face-planted into the black wet mud. I don’t remember the explosion but I remember waking up to completely blurred vision, to the point where I could not see more than three metres in front of me. I went to push myself up off the ground only to realise I was laying across the corpses of three French soldiers. I looked down, through my blurred vision I saw the face of my older brother. I embraced him in my arms as if I would never let him go. “GAS! Run!” I looked up to see yellow smoke rising and climbing through the trenches. I saw the cloud of death consume at least four or five soldiers before I was picked up fiercely by one of my superior officers. I was thrown over his shoulders and he started running, literally, for his life. In his efforts, he tripped over barbed wire which sent me flying to the ground with him. I looked down to see that the wire had snagged his leg.
“Keep going, you can make it!” he hollered with fear in his eyes.
“No, I can’t leave you here! No-one else is going to die today…Not on my watch!” I yelled with all the hope that I had left.
I didn’t know what came over me but I ripped the razor sharp metal wire out of his mutilated leg and started dragging him along the ground with all of my strength. We were then directed to the Med Bay. They put me onto a stretcher and pulled a bandage around my arm. I looked down and saw the gaping bullet hole. Earlier, in amongst all the chaos, I did not seem to realise that I had been shot. I did not scream or cry like I thought I would’ve in that situation, I simply looked blankly at a dead blackened tree that was somehow still standing. I started thinking about what this place was like before this terrible, terrible war had started. My thoughts where quickly interrupted when I heard:
“Down, down, everyone get down!”
The transporting vehicle smashed through the trenches and stopped right at the Med Bay. Sergeant Moreau jumped out of the 6x6 monster of a truck and ordered that all the injured were to be transported to HQ for further treatment. I was lifted up onto the truck and taken to the safe-haven, while being somewhat relieved. My name is Alain Chartier, I was 14 and I was not prepared for this.
VERDUN LASTED FOR 10 MONTHS. THIS IS A FICTIONAL STORY BASED OFF TRUE EVENTS.