25 August 2012
There was bodies all around me, I was covered in the blood of my captain, the smell is what I remember the most, a horrible chemical stench. I could see the enemy silhouetted against the setting sun. I just lay there barley alive, all I could hear was a ringing in my ears that made me think my head was about to explode, I could hardly breathe. Every breath of that putrid chemical air was rasping my throat. I lay there among my fallen comrades barely alive, the battle field had been turned to ashes, I closed my eyes and passed out.
We were known as '17 company'. Our job was to parachute behind enemy lines and destroy Ludendorff bridge with our charges. It was 1944 and the war was coming to Nazi Germany. The bridge was the only remaining route over the river Rhine into Germany's heartland, therefore it was an important strategic event of World War 2 if we could capture and destroy it. But they knew we were coming. The trap had been set.
When I woke I was in a field full of poppies, I thought I was dreaming. I was on a stretcher and my arm was in a sling and there was a bandage wrapped tightly round my head. Frost, Jones, Skinner and Brooks were the soldiers who had saved me and expertly tended my wounds. I still couldn't talk, my throat was on fire and I kept drifting in and out of consciousness. I noticed there uniforms first, different to mine, but they were on my side. Frost was trying to get me to drink from his canister by tilting my head and gently tipping fresh cold water down my burning throat. I could hear them talking about me but when I tried to talk I couldn't. They carried me for miles with no break, away from the battle, away from the smoke and the madness of war. The last thing I remember before I passed out again was the soldiers faces, they seemed so happy, there faces we're like lights in the darkness. I was saved.
When I came to I was in hospital. The ringing had stopped and the smell had gone. I was hooked up to an intravenous drip and my arm was in a cast. I remember finding my voice again and calling for the nurse. Apparently I was found on the steps of the hospital wrapped up in a blanket like a new born baby. The soldiers were no where to be seen and no one who I asked had seen them. I spent years after the war trying to trace these brave men who took me from that battlefield to no avail. It was last remembrance day when I found out who they were and it wasn't what I was expecting to find. The newspapers were documenting events of World War 1 and 2 and remembering the hero's from them terrible wars. It was here I found them, staring at me in black and white it was unmistakably them Frost, Jones, Skinner and Brooks were leaning against a jeep all smiling just as I remembered them. But the story was about how they were lost in battle and never seen again during World War 1. I had to take a double look 'World War 1'. So now on the 11th of the 11th every year I take myself off to a field and say a prayer for these hero's, these 'ghosts of war' and I remember them.......
Ghosts Of War • Opuss № I