Over The Top
With no time to lose, you crawl rapidly back towards your own trench. A flare from the German lines flies high into the sky and again lights up the entire sector. Sergeant Wilkes immediately motions for you to freeze in place. A few shots are fired from German rifles, none of them in your direction. As the flare fizzles out, you resume your steady advance.
Minutes later, another flare is fired overhead. Instinctively, you each jump inside a crater to seek cover. To your dismay, you land in over three feet of freezing water. Soon after this, you hear the sound of
mortar fire and the ensuing blasts of exploding shells now raining all about you. It may be just a matter of seconds before you and the others are cut to pieces.
The shelling intensifies and, to your horror, one of the mortar shells lands right inside George’s crater in an earth-shattering explosion.
You stare in utter disbelief at the smouldering hole. You call out to him, yet hear nothing.