The Trenches Read Online Free Page A

us a wink, then hurried off.
    â€œFood!” sighed Alf. “About time! Come on, lads, let’s get over there!”
    The six of us hurried towards the mess tent. Signs had been put up pointing out where it was. Also, the smell of food cooking was wafting over the camp, so we just followed our noses.
    Until I sat down at a long wooden trestle table with a plate of stew and mashed potato, I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. I hadn’t sat down to a proper meal since just before getting on the boat at Folkestone. We’d grabbed some food at Boulogne, and then again at St Omer while we were waiting for our bus, but this was our first proper meal since leaving England. I wolfed down my food in a state of excitement. I was in Belgium with my mates, ready to start winning the War!
    After mess, it was back to the tent and lights out, and sleep. Not that I could really get to sleep. After the long journey I’d had, all the way from Yorkshire, I thought I’d be worn out and ready to sleep, but my mind was in a whirl. All I could think of was that I was finally here, ready for battle. What would it be like at the Front? What would we be doing as Engineers?
    Next morning the six of us loaded up our packs and joined the column of men heading for the Front. Our column was about 100 men strong, and made up of men from different regiments, some going to fighting units in the trenches, others – like us – being sent to support units. The routine, our Sergeant told us, was seven days in the front-line trenches, followed by seven days back at our billets, then seven days in the trenches again, and so on. We were being thrown in at the deep end straight away, off for our first week at the very heart of the battle.
    We marched towards the Front along roads made of cobbles. The nearer we got to the Front, the worse the roads became, the cobbles sinking into mud and disappearing beneath the surface, until in the end we were marching as best we could on a potholed muddy track.
    We were lucky that our training back home had made us fit, because the weight we had to carry on our backs in our haversacks made the marching even more difficult. As Engineers, we didn’t have rifles and ammunition to weigh us down, but in their places we had bigger and heavier picks and shovels, as well as our mess tin and our water bottle. We also had our gas mask, which we’d been told might one day save our lives, so I made sure mine was within easy grabbing distance.
    We Engineers were near the back of the column, and I couldn’t help a feeling of envy when I looked at the fighting men marching in front of us. That was where I wanted to be. Armed and ready to fight. Not for the first time, I wondered how Rob was doing out here. Had he killed his first Hun yet?
    After miles of marching our legs and shoulders ached, but as we neared the Front we could hear the booming sounds of heavy guns in the distance, and even at this range we could feel the ground shuddering beneath our feet from the heavy shells.
    â€œLooks like we’ve found the War at last,” grinned Charlie, and me and Wally started to chuckle nervously, but we were soon cut short by a yell of, “No talking in the ranks!” from one of the Sergeants just behind us.
    We marched on in silence. So this was the Front. I had never seen anything so desolate before. Just a sea of mud as far as the eye could see. Mud and barbed wire, and deep craters. And miles and miles of trenches filled with soldiers. I wondered where our trenches stopped and the German trenches began. Where was the enemy? I felt a knot of excitement in my belly as I craned my head, scanning the horizon for any sign of them.
    â€œRight turn!” came the order from the Sergeant at the front of our column, and we turned off the road and descended into a trench. I’d dug ditches back home but these trenches were deeper than any of them. This one was about 7 feet deep and about 3