Cyclops part 2

         So we dug.  We  dug and we dug and we dug. I recall the weight of the spade in my hand and the blisters that soon became callouses. Around us were the dead. The brave dead. Those that the Cyclops had eaten,  The Australian khaki, the German blue grey, French Blue Serge, the British khaki... Piled up like stacks of rotten meat.
          I recall The  empty stare from their  eyeless sockets.  Their faces  thin drawn lined and  pinched in as if life had been sucked right out of them; And amongst the corpses were ghosts. O recall that  I could feel them tug at me, pull me,  drag me,  breathe into my heart and want to scream into my ears. I felt their fingers scratch my hands and felt them tug at me feet as I lifted the corpses bloody and broken and placed them into the shallow grave.
            Murderers did this.  Killers did this. Not  generals.  Not officers.  Not men.  I heard the mocking of the crows and lookin’ up, I noted that though the  sky was darkening, the crows  wings  could still be seen  circlin’ overhead.
              They call it a murder of crows. But we were we the killers.  At that moment, burying the dead with such ignominy I have to say, that at that time, and in that place, I felt like a killer. How did they all end up here? All alone hundreds of miles from home Separated from their ranks I have to say, I don’t know. I was and am a soldier; I don’t question the orders, regardless of what I think of them. I carry them out and then think about the decision afterwards. Perhaps better men than me will be able to put a reason to it with time. But that is this war.  There is no good or bad, just death and the death of many many men.
               It was dark when we ‘d  finished. I looked at Jack  and h e looked at me.  We both thought it, and our eyes welled with the immensity of it. This war was never going to end. 
                Jack died a month later in no man’s land. I was behind him. I saw through my gas mask amid the explodin’  shells an the cracking  soil. Through the pale smokean the ghosts  I saw his body buckle and break as the bullets from the German machine gun cut into him. The  Cyclops had im in his mouth and was chompin’ him to bits.   I gasped as I saw his body buckle and then and there I realised the truth of those men in that unmarked grave. That after this charge, the  retreat would be called and the clean-up crew would clear the bodies for another attempt and then another, until we were all dead.
                 I  vaguely  recall that I charged over to Jack  as bullets flew and spralled  about me. I could see the Cyclops standing over the German lines. His  single eye blazing with triumph, his mouth salivating at the corpses  that were piling up.  I  screamed my silence through my mask as I fought with all I had  through the barbs of wire, that cut me and tore me to shreds. Then there was darkness; and a dizzy thumping sound in my head.  I thought that I was going to die, I felt separate distant from myself. Apart lost perhaps in a vacant nowhere. 
              Then I I awoke in a field hospital, a mile from the front.
To my right  A nurse, I’ll never know her name,  was tending my wounds.  On the other side of me was the Captain from the burying detail.
            He looked down at me, and with a tear in his eye an  he smiled.  So they brought me home.  That was all  of two years ago today. I hear the war is nearly over now.  They are calling it the "the war to end all wars"  perhaps it will be, though something tells me, its the tip of the iceberg.
Harry?  He  managed to survive, but he is the only one of our pals that has. I hear from him in letters and the occasional  post cards He wants to meet up.  But I doubt I will. After all, I hate those  boater hats.

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