2664129 Private Gibson
Wednesday 5 August 1914, France
The sound of the guns moves further and further away, then silence, the first in ages.
Jack and I decide to sneak around the trenches to see what’s going on.
Jack scouts ahead of me, always ahead of me. He is strange; he wants to protect me.
We walk for what seems like hours. The ground is flooded to our ankles; it’s cold like ice and yet the air is warm.
We come to a corner and pause, listening, no sound, we wait longer then we hear the foot steps.
“Run!” Jack shouts. I run back to the corner we just came through and watch, watch as they
take Jack by the arms and tie his wrists together as tight as they can; he screams with pain.
I see blood drip from his wrists.
They push him to the ground. He is silent. The man in front of him puts his gun up.
I can’t watch, so I close my eyes. Jack is lying there, his skin pale, the blood pours down his face; he was shot in the head.
Tears fill my eyes as a soldier from my country comes to take me back to where everyone else is.
My heart beats fast with hatred and sadness. That was the last time I ever saw Jack, dead on the ground fighting for his country, fighting for me.
A Short Story by Holly Gibson, 8KH