History

Somehow the time or space around the battle field had gotten warped.

Somehow time was repeating itself again, he thought.

“This is it, lads”, said the Sargent Major, sounding to Toms ears as if he had said it a thousand times before, “The big push. Time to be a hero for king and country”.

But he knew what would happen if he went out on that battle field against the German guns. He’d seen it before. It had happened before.

He’d scramble up over the edge of the dugout with the others; the sound of the Sargent Major bellowing ‘Charge’ ringing in his ears and his enfield rifle with its fixed bayonet in his hands and he would try to charge but then, before too long, as all the men round about him were shot to pieces and thudding like sandbags onto the mud, screaming, by the enemy fire, he would realise that it was hopeless; that there was no chance; that he wasn’t a hero but just a lamb to the slaughter.

But by then it would be too late; no way forward and no turning back; for then he would feel the German bullets start to burn and one hit him in the forehead.

And then he would just be lying on the battlefield staring at the yellow phosgene clouded sky; other soldiers trampling over him in hard, heavy boots as they ran towards certain doom, and wondering why the hell he had signed up to this madness.

But he couldn’t stop it. It had happened a dozen times already and it was happening again but he couldn’t stop it because he was the only one who could feel events repeating themselves. The only one who remembered dying again and again. For everyone else round about him it was always the first time.

And how could he explain it to them. They would call him a coward and have him up before a firing squad and then, as well as dying, his family would have to live with his disgrace.

No there was no way out. He would just have to go forward.

But he knew what would happen.

Somehow the time or space around the battle field had gotten warped, you see.

Somehow time was repeating itself again.