Over the Top by Amy Thorne

Staff pick - Adults category

My hands are numb.

It's been days since my uniform was dry, since anything around me was dry. The days have been short and cloudy, and the cold bites my face. I am uncomfortable, but I don't remember what it feels like to be comfortable. The smell is constant--mud, sweat, waste, death--and even in quiet moments you can hear the rats. I'm not thinking about the rats or stench now, though. The sun set long ago, and the shells are beginning to explode in the distance. Not in the distance, I suppose. Distance and time change here. Their trenchline is impossibly close. Their trenchline is impossibly far. Bullets, mortars, gas cross no man's land in an instant; soldiers cross no man's land in an eternity. Tonight, it's our turn.

I'm already afraid. I grip a rifle, my back pressed to the muddy wall. Others are moving around me but I'm not sure where I'm supposed to be. I'm not going first, but I don't know if it really matters. The explosions rattle my teeth, or maybe they're chattering in the cold. The bullets are screaming overhead, or maybe that's another boy dying in the distance. Well, not in the distance.

Something sprays lightly against me; is it raining again? Did it thunder? Was that lightning or a flash from the battle? Have those clouds rolled back in? I slouch down a little further, knowing that I will have to move up and over soon. I have already lost track of the men that were around me. I can hear wails but there's no way to know how the fight is going; wails are the same in any language. A machine gun is firing from their line and in the dark I imagine it sweeping across my company, Smith, Logan, Burns dropping into bloody puddles. My turn is coming; I think the trench is already empty. I can't stay here. I can't make my boots move.

Their machine gun has stopped, but the screams haven't. I catch snatches of German words, strangled in terror. Has our front line made it already? But why would enemy soldiers stop firing a machine gun while they're alive enough to scream?

The hail of bullets slackens, and in the lull the thunder is clear. I can hear a question, an uncertain voice. More screams from the enemy line. Something is wrong. An officer has called out to stay the advance. No one is firing at us. Something is wrong.

I look, slowly, over the edge of the trench and strain to see. It's so dark. I can feel raindrops on my wrists. Suddenly a German cries out and a shot is fired, followed by silence. A break in the cloud allows some moonlight on the battlefield, which is impossibly still for land occupied by soldiers on a trench raid. I focus on the opposite trench. It is soundless, and I swear I can see a black shadow crest the top. I can distinguish nothing further but it is no longer silent. A low rumble, almost too low to hear, vibrates in my helmet. It fades slowly. And a shriek pierces the dark.

I drop back below the top of the trench and press into the wall again. I was already afraid. Now I feel terror creeping up my throat. Shots are being fired again, but the screams are horrifically distinguishable. Other cries of confusion, closer to me. Are we being picked off? Is there a sniper, some kind of sniper that can see in the dark? I struggle to make sense of the sounds. How can a man hunt enemies in the dark, how can a bayonet or club provoke such a noise in a soldier? What is that deep, smothering sound?

Someone is desperately asking what is attacking. A gargling noise. A cry. A prayer. Whatever is coming is silencing the men it encounters as it crosses the battlefield in the distance. No, not in the distance. There are fewer voices, and then fewer still. One final man is yelling out the names of the men who went over the top with him. His hysteria is cut off with a wet thud.

I was already terrified; now I am senseless. I slide down the wall as my knees fail, still clutching the rifle I know I will not fire. We are being hunted, although I don't know by what. That we are being hunted is the last thing I will know. It's coming over the top.