My Short Story (The War to End All Wars)

“The war to end all wars”

Pvt. James “Rusty” Carter
Assault Team Entrenched
3:00 PM
Fort Macintosh

“Get down!” a large explosion erupted over Pvt. Wesley’s head.
Sgt. Richards lit his cigar and took a long smoke. He puffed like there wasn’t even a war occurring. “Ah, the smell of fresh blood really gets the adrenaline pumping.”
I looked at him like he was insane, but that’s how he usually acts. Pvt. Rusty is my name, or at least that’s what they call me.
“Rusty!” Corporal Young hollered. “I need your team to get moving! The Germans aren’t going to give up any time soon!”
I nodded and signaled my team to hurry up. I didn’t notice that two of my men were already shot dead. They were the 30th and 31st dead bodies I’ve seen in the last hour. I couldn’t handle all the rats and carcasses scattered along the trench floor. The trenches were about 6 ft deep and weren’t extremely wide so I didn’t have a lot of breathing space. A few guys barfed on my uniform a couple of minutes ago. I think I might pass out.
“Wesley!” the Sgt. shouted. “I need you to get moving! They’re about to advance!”
Wesley looked over to Pvt. Bobby “Gunz” William. He was the most brutal and hardheaded guy I knew. He was the machine gunner of his team. I have no idea how he can withstand the recoil of that gun. Then again his arms were like two tree trunks that could smash a skull with one flick of his pinky.
Gunz spun the machine gun and wiped out most of the advancing riflemen. Suddenly an enemy patrol of assault men leaped up out of their ditch. They were experts on killing the entrenched with their grenades.
“Granate!” one shouted and tossed up a hand explosive. It flew up in the air and landed on an ally rifleman’s lap.
“Get it off son of a…!” he couldn’t finish when it went off. The explosion knocked back two men, but they weren’t severely injured. The rifleman however exploded with the grenade scattering blood everywhere. An arm landed on the edge of the trench near the Sgt.’s face. A leg flew in the air and hit someone out in the open on the head.
“Stirb!” a German shouted with a battle cry.
The grenade deafened my hearing for a few seconds, but I slowly got my senses back to me.
“Verbessern!” another enemy screamed.
Gunz machine gun began to overheat so he grabbed the dead rifleman’s Springfield and shot at the assault team. He hit one successfully in the torso and blood splashed out quickly. It was a nice kill.
I picked up my rifle and shot another in the leg. Not my best shot, but he was down for a second. I signaled Gunz to finish him off.
Gunz noticed the down enemy pulling a grenade from his belt and that more enemies were approaching. When the advancing patrol was right next to their downed ally, he fired at the live grenade and sent an explosion that took out three men including the wounded soldier.
Sgt. gave a thumbs up approval to Gunz. In his language that usually mean “Out freaking standing!”Richards continued to focus on the trench in front of us.
“When will they freaking give up!?” Wesley cried wiping blood and dirt from his tired face.
“When the fat lady sings my friend…when the fat lady sings.” Gunz softly spoke. A bullet streaked just above his Mohawk. “Yikes! Almost took my head clean off.”
Wesley laughed and fired at a rifleman with a clean headshot.
“Stirb!” an enemy shouted and out of nowhere a large musket shot down into the trench stabbing Wesley in the arm. Gunz grabbed the rifle, snapped off the blade and stabbed the enemy in the chest. Didn’t take long for a bleed out.
“I’m down!” Wesley screamed. The blade wound was very deep.
“Medic!” I shouted. I didn’t want to see a 33rd body. Wesley and I go way back to the boot camp days when Sgt. had us running courses that he called playgrounds. The tires and monkey bars made sense, but the death spikes and torches didn’t fit our image. Wesley was the only sane guy there that didn’t make you go through your squad’s ‘initiation’ which would be like steal the Sergeant’s cold pizza or graffiti on Squad 131’s cabin. They were like demons that hid under human skin. No emotions when they fight in war or beat the crap out of you when you mess with their stuff. Both were suicide missions. So anyways, we’ve been buddies for a whole year and I wanted to make sure he stayed safe. He was 3 years younger than me. Older guys have to protect the younger. It’s our squad’s tradition.

6 months earlier…
“Eat it baby! Eat it!” Jackson shouted. He shoved the mud in my face. “If you want initiation you gotta do what we say! Got that!?”
I gagged a bit and threw up the worms in the mud. Big nasty night crawler length worms.
A young soldier stood next to the window holding up a picture of his girlfriend. He was afraid she would be unfaithful to him while he was at war. “Valarie...” he said softly.
The soldier boys looked at him. “Little boy misses his chica,” Martinez teased.
The young soldier squinted his eyes at him. He tried to ignore them and their immatureness, but our cabin had the most obnoxious team. “Whatever.”
“Screw you man.” Martinez shoved him into the bathroom and dunked his head deep into the toilet. “Better wash up for your lady!”
I stood up shoved Martinez away from the soldier. “Back off.”
“Oh so you wanna fight hey newbie?” he punched me back in the gut.
I staggered back catching my breath. I cracked my knuckles and punched again, but he blocked it with his arm. He swung at me, so I ducked down. Getting irritated, Martinez swung his foot at me. His target was somewhere I call family jewels. I went down in agony.
“Look at this guy!” Martinez laughed. “Can’t even take a low blow ha ha!”
My face turned red, or at least it felt hot. I got back up and charged into him knocking Martinez into the sink. I grabbed his head and smashed it against the mirror cracking it slightly. Next, I picked him up by the back of his uniform and tossed him into the bunk beds. The top of it collapsed onto him. “I said leave him alone…”
The boy dried his blonde hair with a towel, then slowly walked out of the restroom. “Thanks…”
The other soldiers looked at me with blank faces or possibly fear.
Moaning came from under the bed. I think that idiot will make it through the week.

Hours later, the boy introduced himself as Scott Wesley. Ever since then we became best buds and he was done taking crap from Martinez. The dude that I beat up was out for a couple of months due to a broken arm and leg. Wesley and I completed the obstacle courses, marksmen classes and how to properly call in artillery strikes. Now we go back to the battle over Fort Macintosh.

“Medic!” I shouted again. “We need a freaking medic!”
I looked up from the trench to see the dirt warzone being blown to bits by enemy artillery. At least I’m pretty sure it was enemy, but German soldiers were dashing through the explosions. Why would they bomb themselves?
“Stirb!” they shouted as they leaped down into the trench in front of us. Bayonet blades shot down from the German Gewehr 98’s and pierced the hearts of allied British soldiers.
One allied soldier got out of the trench and run towards ours, only to be brutally shot in the back by 3 enemy riflemen. He began crawling and crying in agony. I wished I could help, but Wesley needed my help. “Help me!”
A German finished him with a final stab of his bayonet. “Swine.”
I loaded a new bullet, looked down my sights and shot just one bullet into the foe’s chest. I cocked back the rifle and the bullet fell to the muddy ground. I loaded another, shot another enemy and reloaded the rifle once again. My emotions were gone, my feelings were numb and my goal was to kill. Bullet after bullet fell to the dirt ground and so did the approaching enemies.
Gunz stared at me like he had just been terrified by the ghosts of his past.
Rain began pouring down from the cloudy skies, then slowly dripped off my helmet. A mist of fog covered the battlefield. All grew silent.
“Sergeant! We’ve lost sight of the enemy!” Pvt. Burns shouted.
Next, a surprise attack sprung from the fog and bayonets shot down at us. I jumped to the right to avoid the blood soaked blades. Luckily, I wasn’t seen when they jumped down into our trench. Most likely they thought Wesley was already dead so they left him be. Unfortunately everyone else was brutally stabbed. Yet, I didn’t see Gunz anywhere.
I pulled out my Colt slowly and made sure I was as quiet as possible. I slowly slipped a fresh magazine into the gun and aimed for the man closest to me. Little did I know there was a man standing right above the trench aiming his Gewehr right at my head. “Halt!” he shouted.
All eyes were on me lightning fast. There was no way out.
“Swine!” another shouted and kicked the gun out of my hand.
Another proceeded to stab a bayonet straight through my arm. The troops began talking about something in German and I think it was about me. I was pretty sure since they glanced at me every ten seconds.
The blade was extremely painful and they most likely plotted to torture me. The blood oozed out of my arm and made a small puddle next to me.
“American?” one German asked. He must have been their squad leader.
“Yes?” I slowly gulped.
“You are not going to like the rest of today. We are going to win this battle and hang you as a trophy!” he laughed.
Now that I understood I thought to myself.
He spoke in German to his men again, then looked back at me. “If there are no more of you, I’m pretty sure our work here is done.”
“Not today!” Gunz leaped up from behind and stabbed the squad leader through his torso with his bayonet.
The others panicked in trying to reload a new bullet, so Gunz smashed them up with his fists. “Run Rusty run!”
I yanked the blade from my arm and jumped out of the trench. I sprinted as fast as I could holding my arm so I wouldn’t lose too much blood. A few shots went off at me. One hit my leg and another hit my hand. The pain made me drop my rifle and suddenly I was helpless.
Gunz came to help, but a mine went off taking him down. A rock from the explosion slit his head open like a grape.
I couldn’t watch anymore, Wesley and Gunz were goners. I didn’t even think anymore, I just crawled away from the fear. The mist finally began to clear and gunfire rang out once again. Artillery shells started firing from both sides of the field and I was stuck in the middle. I looked behind me to spot a large infantry movement coming towards my position. I smashed my face into the dirt and cursed at myself. “Why couldn’t I just save everyone!” Bawling, I looked in front of me to see empty trenches. We were retreating and I knew nothing would save me. The pain was excruciating, but somehow I was still crawling along the gore filled land. Nothing could stop me, but an evil force was shouting in my face. “Your finished! Your finished!” it screamed in my thoughts. I fell into a trench by me hands first, cracking one of my wrists. I looked around in the trenches to only see many fallen allies and some people I went to boot camp with. “Dear god…”
Then a German soldier jumped down into the trench beside me, but he didn’t notice me. “Little American! Come out little American!”
I got onto my knees and slowly pulled out my tactical knife. Quick as a tiger, I grabbed his mouth making sure he wouldn’t scream and stabbed him in the chest. Slowly he suffocated and fell to the ground.
“Rusty? Is that you?” a voice came from all around.
My senses we obliterated from the gunfire and grenades. I turned around to see Sergeant Richards puffing on his cigar.
“What are you doing out here soldier? We’re calling in the second wave! Those Germans won’t know what freaking hit ‘em!”
I knew it was my time, I could have survived that day, but a greater calling was at stake. I knew the German’s had an advancing anti-infantry unit heading towards our position. The fog had given them cover and would attack before our reinforcements had arrived. “Sgt…”
He looked puzzled as I stood slowly back up. “What are you doing private!?”
I slowly walked past him to pick up our flag. I knew what I had to do…
“Private!” he hollered.
I sprinted across the side of the battlefield with the flag raised high. “THEY HAVE REINFORCEMENTS! FALL BACK AND TAKE COVER! FALL BACK!!!”
The soldiers acknowledged and fell back to a few trenches behind, but I was too far to join them.
Still running with the flag I went back to get Wesley from the trench the Germans have captured. I pulled out my handgun and shot some approaching infantry. A mortar almost snapped off my feet as it exploded behind me. Mines going off left and right completely destroyed my sense of hearing. The dirt and sweat built up over my face.
“Stirb!” the German’s shouted.
Gunfire went off at me, but none hit me. I knew this was my calling, nothing could stop me now.
“Wesley!” I shouted. I saw his body in the trench and jumped down into it.
“Piece of swine American!” a German dashed at me, but he stopped once I pierced the flag pole through him. I did the same to more advancing Germans and finished off their officer by mounting the flag through his chest. I carried Wesley on my back and ran back towards Fort Macintosh.
“Private get back here now!” the Sergeant was bright red and so was his fresh cigar.
Wesley moaned which meant he was still alive. “Wha…wha..what’s going on…?”
“You’re going home buddy…to see your wife.”
I tossed Wesley to the Sergeant and prepared to get back into cover…but then all was still. A deafening sound came to my ears, then silence. It was so instant I couldn’t react. I heard someone shouted “Sniper!” Then I knew my job was done. I had gone into a completely comfortable state where I didn’t move, but felt so relaxed. I went into a deep sleep and all was quiet…

That day, Pvt. Rusty saved thousands of infantry by telling them to fall back. Sergeant Richards held back the enemy and saved Fort Macintosh. Pvt. Wesley got to see his wife again, but died in the hospital a week later. The infection from the blade wound gave him rust poisoning. Corporal Young moved onto greater things and led Troop 743 to more victories in the future. Bobby Gunz’s family had mourned his loss, but in his honor his younger brother will be joining the force once he turns 17. He’s 16 right now.
This team led America to many more victories…but these veterans may never be known by anyone else, but their family and Troop 743.