Salient

The salient drew his mind to the terrors of the day, and the stink of the long dead buried in the mire. The creeping barrage sought him hiding in his clay, found him there and surrounded him in searing fire. Beneath the wounded trenches his new comrades lie, broken and dismembered in their regimental symmetry. And his eyes look on in wonder as such brave men die, to suit the whims of government and evil serendipity. Each breath now inhaled brings the horror of the fight, each movement in his shallow an enemy closer still. But salvaion comes not before the fading of the light, and vengeance holds his mind in its readiness to kill. The crimson rivulets flow slower and the pain is eased, 'mid the weeping, sleeping soldiers and the new dead. With seeping cordite and gas the god of war is pleased, while the one remaining guardian cowers in his dread. 'Bring the night, bring the night' he prays in his fear, as the bombs cascade around him in his clay hollow. 'Let me live and i will make it clear, and tell the truths and the lies to those who follow!!!'