Leaving the Trenches

I am smoking a cigarette. I look over my right shoulder and I see another soldier doing the cross over himself and I can hear him say quietly, "Father, Son and the Holy Spirit". I believe he starts to pray before we have to move.

I hear someone shout to get ready and I take one last inhale of the smoke and toss it into the mud. I fix my bayonet and pull the front of my helmet down a bit to cover my face a bit more.

I hear the order to charge, and I say to myself, "May God be merciful" or something to that effect. I hear a scream to my right and I see the man who was praying laying dead in the trench. We move on as if nothing has happened.